


Florida Kilos

by brujeria



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Break Up, Depression, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Recreational Drug Use, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-23 20:44:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16166666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brujeria/pseuds/brujeria
Summary: “i am a lover without a lover. i am lovely and lonely and i belong deeply to myself.”― warsan shireIt’s like when you pass an abandoned building that’s surrounded by wrecking balls and bulldozers and excavators and cranes – the glass from the storefront windows knocked out, the logo gone, half-scrubbed graffiti on the walls – and you swear that store was still in business when you last drove by it three days ago. It’s like looking at something and knowing that something used to be there, but for whatever reason it isn’t anymore. That’s what looking at Loki was like. When Tony looked at Loki he knew that there used to be a person in there somewhere, but Tony doesn’t know when that person disappeared, just like he doesn’t know when that store closed. Because it’s one of those things that happens slowly when you’re not paying attention; it’s one of those things that happens and you don’t even notice until the damage is done, ‘til the fire has broken out the windows and reached through the ceiling and licked the edges strewn with splintered wood and jagged glass, that you even notice that a fire had been sparked.





	Florida Kilos

**Author's Note:**

> Companion playlist may be found here: https://8tracks.com/brujeria/florida-kilos

I.

_“i am a lover without a lover. i am lovely and lonely and i belong deeply to myself.”  
_ _― Warsan Shire_

It’s like when you pass an abandoned building that’s surrounded by wrecking balls and bulldozers and excavators and cranes – the glass from the storefront windows knocked out, the logo gone, half-scrubbed graffiti on the walls – and you _swear_ that store was still in business when you last drove by it three days ago. It’s like looking at something and _knowing_ that something used to be there, but for whatever reason it isn’t anymore. That’s what looking at Loki was like. When Tony looked at Loki he knew that there used to be a person in there somewhere, but Tony doesn’t know when that person disappeared, just like he doesn’t know when that store closed. Because it’s one of those things that happens slowly when you’re not paying attention; it’s one of those things that happens and you don’t even notice until the damage is done, ‘til the fire has broken out the windows and reached through the ceiling and licked the edges strewn with splintered wood and jagged glass, that you even notice that a fire had been sparked.

×××

                “If only you’d have known him before the accident,” Thor says one day after showing up at Tony’s door with dark, sleepless eyes, a distinctly nervous, anticipatory quiver rattling his fingers, begging Tony for a cigarette.

                Tony invites Thor in, and gives him a cigarette. The winter air is harsh against his cheeks, and he ushers Thor in quickly so he can close the door. Loki has been missing for eighteen hours, and Thor is starting to worry. It’s not the depressive episodes that were growing more and more frequent, and it’s not the fact that Loki isn’t at his apartment, and it’s not the fact that Loki is ignoring him. Those are all common obstacles at this point. It’s that Tony hasn’t heard from Loki yet. And despite their distance the last few months, Loki still keeps in touch with Tony, still touches base with him.

                “You don’t think he’s gone and done something stupid do you?”

                Tony thinks for a moment. It’s a possibility, certainly, but Tony doesn’t want Thor to worry any more than he already is. “No, I think he’s probably holed up in a hotel doing drugs with one of his fucking drug friends.”

                Thor lets out another heavy sigh and lets his chin hit his chest in defeat. “He really has a problem, doesn’t he?”

                “No shit he has a problem. He’s had a problem for years, he just hid it well. Like good drug addicts do,” Tony says spitefully, his words cold and biting. Part of him feels like Thor should have noticed since he witnessed it first hand and saw all the signs, but the other part of him knows not to blame Thor because there’s no way he could have known. Loki hid it too well. Loki hid everything too well. Not to mention the fact that he was a master liar and manipulator.

                “Look, I’ll go check on him. Stay here.”

 

II.

 _I know no religion_  
but the black of your hair  
matted against the pillow.  
Maari Carter, from “Homemade Sin”

The first time Tony meets Loki it’s at a house party close to the end of the fall semester of his sophomore year of college. Tony doesn’t necessarily meet Loki that night, but he sees him. He goes with Bucky, Steve’s… somewhat odd friend. But Bucky promised free beer and wagered that there’s be a pretty good chance there’d be some good old fashioned breast flashing. Bucky said that the people who owned the house and threw the parties were really chill. The house itself is stuffy – full of cigarette and marijuana smoke. Every time Tony has to go to the restroom the door’s locked and once he’s finally able to enter he notices a distinct powdery residue on the counter after the three or so people that were occupying the bathroom eventually file out.

The house is packed, and there’s a guy DJ-ing in the living room while some B-movie plays on a projector on the wall in the dining room. Tony ventures outside into the back yard after the stuffiness and heat and thumping music and body odor were too much to bear. Now, at this point Tony is already moderately drunk; Tony’s feelin’ himself just a bit. There’s music blaring – different from what was playing inside – and even more people in the back yard than were in the house. And when he walks into the backyard his eyes are immediately drawn to the swirling of LED hoops; every light pulse matching the tempo of the song, while every physical movement of the dancer thrums with the bass. The hooper twirls the hoop with precision and grace that Tony hasn’t ever seen before. In the dark from this far away Tony can’t tell if the hooper is male or female, but Tony is entranced by their movements. The hooper tosses the hoop in the air, catching it with his ankle, kicks it, and lets it flow partially up his leg until he suddenly reverses the hoop and passes it to the other ankle, the hoop swirling up and down his torso and raised arm. Tony can feel his heart pounding quicker and quicker as he watches the hooper dance with the hoop in ways that he didn’t know were possible. The dancer continues, and Tony, Tony is so entranced that he forgets about the whiskey sour in his hands, about the cocaine buzz in his brain, about all the other people surrounding him. He is utterly and indefinitely entranced by the enthralling movements of the hooper who is dancing only a handful of yards away from him.

Until Bucky claps a hand on his shoulder, startling him so much that he spills his drink.

“There you are, Tony! I’ve been looking for you, man. I wanted to introduce you to someone. This is Thor.”

It’s dark outside but there’s enough light coming from the house and the strung up tealights and the echo of LED hula hoop lights that Tony can make out a hulking figure with long blonde hair who is several inches taller than him.

“Hey Thor, I’m Tony. Tony Stark.” Tony says, giving Thor a happy half wave.

“He’s very good, isn’t he?” Thor says in reply. It’s more of a statement than a question.

“What?” Tony asks, sipping his drink. The little voice in the back of his mind is begging him to go up to the bathroom and do another line.

Thor nods in the direction of the hooper.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, he’s really good. _Really_ good.” Tony says. _What are words, you idiot_ , Tony berates himself.

“I can introduce you, if you want.” Thor says happily. “Loki is a nice person, and he needs more friends. I think he would like you, Tony Stark.”

 _How would you know if he would like me, you barely know me_ , Tony thinks. But that would be rude, and Tony doesn’t want to be rude.

“Maybe later,” Tony says nervously, glancing back at the one named Loki. The song has changed, it’s a slower one now, but Loki is still dancing, although his movements are slower and more precise, more cutthroat, more clean. “Do you guys come here a lot?”

“Oh yeah,” Thor says. “Loki loves to dance, but he doesn’t really get a chance to have an audience much. So we come whenever Peter and Gamora have a party. Plus there’s always free alcohol and drugs.” Thor chuckles softly.

Tony smirks. “So, are you guys like together or something?”

Both Thor and Bucky laugh heartily. “No, Tony Stark, Loki is my little brother. We both attend the same university as you do though.”

Tony blushes, feeling stupid for asking such a personal question only to find out that the object of his infatuation is actually his new acquaintance’s brother.

Tony looks at Bucky, and trying to change the subject, says, “I need another line. Care to join me?” He looks to Thor, extending the invitation.

“Sure,” Bucky replies, and Thor nods as well. The trio return back inside and go upstairs to the bathroom which is surprisingly unoccupied at the moment. The three bulky men cram themselves into the small bathroom and Tony pulls the baggie of white powder from the back pocket of his jeans. He dumps out a generous amount of the coke on the bathroom counter and then pulls out a credit card from his wallet, chopping up the somewhat sticky powder the best he can into three large bumps. He rolls up a fifty dollar bill tightly and then takes his bump, gasping shortly as he rises back up. He glances at himself in the mirror. His hair is somewhat disheveled and his pupils are blown. Perfect. He passes the fifty to Bucky who takes his bump, and then passes it to Thor who in turn takes his.

The three of them stay in the bathroom chatting for a few minutes, and then Tony pours out another three lines of cocaine for the three of them to share. Tony decides that he likes Thor, and that they’ll eventually probably become good friends. But he finds that his mind keeps wandering back to Thor’s brother, Loki. It’s not that he can help it either. It’s an impulse, almost. Finally, someone knocks on the door and it’s time for them to evacuate the bathroom and give it up to the next person who needs it for whatever reasons, dubious or not.

Thor, Tony, and Bucky stick together for the remainder of the time that they are at the party. Tony is introduced to a couple of Bucky’s other friends, Clint and Natasha, who are obviously a couple. Bucky and Tony stay until around 5 a.m., and that’s when the party starts to die down a bit.

Thor leaves to retrieve Loki, who is still in the backyard, and when he comes back through to say his final goodbye Tony finally gets a good look at Loki. He’s tall and slender – more like lanky – with green, _green_ eyes and black hair that falls to his shoulders. Loki’s dressed in a black t-shirt with holes ripped near the torso and shoulders, black skinny jeans, and black combat boots, with his hoop folded up and in his hand.

“Goodbye friends!” Thor grins drunkenly, his cheeks looking like red apples. “It was nice to meet you Tony Stark!” Thor hugs him, and then Barton, and Tony can see Loki laugh a small laugh at his drunk brother.

“Where’s the keys, Thor? I’m driving.” It’s the first thing Tony has heard Loki say, and his voice is like soft crimson. Thor hands Loki the keys, smart enough to know that he’s too intoxicated to drive.

The two leave, and as they do so, Loki glances back over his shoulder at Tony, smirking slyly. Tony feels something like butterflies in his gut, and his heart quickens. Bucky and Tony leave shortly after. Once they’re in the car Tony’s mind begins to wander again, back to Loki of course. To his dancing, to his smile, to his _green, green, green_ eyes, to his mouth, and what that mouth could do.

“So, I’m pretty sure that Loki kid is making me question my sexuality,” Tony tells Bucky.

Bucky laughs, “Yeah, he kind of does that.” Bucky starts the car but doesn’t start driving. He stares ahead, a grimace on his face.

“What?” Tony questions curiously.

Bucky gets very serious for a moment, and his tone lowers. “Stay away from him, Tony. He’s bad news. Seriously, dude. He’s fucked up.”

Tony’s taken aback by Bucky’s words. “Okay, dude. Okay. But, why?”

Bucky just shakes his head, and starts to drive. “I don’t know the whole story. I don’t even know a quarter of it. Just things that Thor has let slip and the shit that happened with Natasha. That’s all I know.”

“Well, are you gonna tell me?”

“Maybe. Maybe sometime. But now’s not the time.”

The sun is starting to come up. And all that Tony can think is that _Loki will be his new challenge_.

_×××_

Tony goes to the same party the next weekend, again with Bucky. He only goes with the hopes that that Loki kid will be there, in all honesty. And this time he’s able to meet him. They chat, and they share their coke with each other in the bathroom upstairs. Tony can feel Bucky’s eyes staring holes through the back of his head, but he ignores it. Loki laughs musically, and he doesn’t leave Tony, not even to go dance. Thor joins in on the conversation every now and again throughout the night, as does Bucky, but for the most part, it’s just Loki and Tony getting to know each other. Eventually when the night starts to wane they exchange phone numbers. Tony notices that Loki pops several pills throughout the night, but doesn’t think much of it. He assumes it’s Tylenol to deal with the blaring music or the headache that sometimes comes with coming down from coke. He definitely doesn’t say anything, nor does he ask for one despite the impending headache he has coming. Loki chats with Tony about anything and everything at a small table in the corner of what would be a dining room if it had a table and chairs and not a bunch of drunk people in it. Eventually Bucky comes to find Tony around 4 a.m., and he looks _pissed_ , and he says it’s time to go. Bucky doesn’t talk on the way home, and when Tony promises to text or call Loki, his eye-roll is _audible_. Bucky drops Tony off at home, and speeds away into the breaking dawn. Tony is left befuddled, but then he remembers Bucky’s warning from the week before. And he brushes it aside. Because that is what Tony usually does with warnings. He likes to discover things for himself, and at this point Loki seems like a normal, healthy college student, just like himself.

Except, he isn’t.

_×××_

                “On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you think it would be if-” Tony starts, looking at Bucky from the corner of his eye.

“At least a twenty,” Bucky says in an overly snarky manner.

                Bucky and Tony are walking from one of the parking lots towards the building that their class is in. It’s chilly, even for autumn, and both of them are bundled head to toe. Before Tony even says anything, Bucky knows exactly what – or, more precisely, _who_ , Tony is speaking of. The sky is overcast and grey, threatening the duo with rain.

                “Yeah, but what if-”

                “ _Tony_ ,” Bucky says, annoyed. He stops in the middle of the pathway and stares at Tony, grinding his teeth, trying to find the words that will get through to Tony that _anything_ involving Loki is a Bad Idea™.

                While Bucky is brewing and stewing and thinking, Tony spots an out to this conversation that is about to walk right past him.

“Bruce! Ahhh, Bruce, my good ol’ lab partner! How ya doing buddy?” Tony ignores Bucky’s start of a sentence that will inevitably be a spiel about how much of a piece of shit Loki is, and instead preys on poor Bruce Banner, who is unfortunate enough to share the same lab as Tony and Bucky and just so happens to be walking by.

“You know, I had a few questions about the lab today, think we can talk about it a bit before class?” Tony splurts out as quickly as he can before Bucky can get another word in. Bruce has this astonished look on his face, and while he might be timid now Tony knows Bruce has a temper.

“Yeah, uh, sure, I guess. Sure Tony.”

“Awesome. Great,” Tony smiles an almost sinister smile, and then, towards Bucky, he says, “Gotta go Buck. I’ll catch up with you later, yeah?” And the shit eating grin that is plastered on Tony’s face is enough to make Bucky want to simultaneously throat punch Tony and face palm at the same time.

_×××_

There’s this hole in the wall dive bar called the Boobie Trap where everyone knows everyone and the owner get shit faced with his bartenders every night that Loki introduces Tony to. Tony sees a number of people he recognizes from the party house he first met Loki at; this is where they congregate – this is where they hold church every day of the week, as well as the weekend warriors with corporate jobs that love the shitty local music scene.

The night they go to the Trap for the first time there’s a gathering called Resistance. Everyone is made up to the T – fishnets ripped, eyeliner wings sharp enough to cut a motherfucker, bright green and rainbow tutus afloat, and a drag queen doing karaoke inside. There’s a cover, even though most people congregate outside on the deck to smoke and drink all night. This is where Tony finds himself, glued to Loki’s hip as Loki navigates and plays the crowd of familiar people Tony somewhat recognizes and the others who are complete strangers.

Loki has his hoop with him, tucked neatly against his side under his arm. There are several girls outside hooping to the music playing from the outside stereo, and Tony hopes to the gods and goddesses that Loki is planning on joining them later. The duo make their way through a throng of people on the deck, through a narrow hallway leading inside and make their way to the bar.

“First drinks on me,” Loki says, smiling. Tony grins, and orders a whiskey and Coke from the busty, broody bartender named Wanda. Loki orders a liquid marijuana, which is a drink Tony’s never heard of before, and it’s definitely not what he expected. The drink is greener than Loki’s eyes, and sweeter than the sound of his voice. Loki also orders two shots of Jaeger, and the two slam the drinks before heading back outside.

Loki notices Tony staring at the drink in his hand, so he asks, “Do you want to try it?”

Tony shrugs, his love for anything alcoholic everlasting, “Sure.”

Loki holds out the drink and Tony takes a sip. The drink is sweeter than the harsh whiskey he’s used to drinking, and it tastes like magic in his mouth.

“Good lord, that is delicious.”

Loki laughs lightly. “Be careful though. It’s like a Long Island, but _better_. Shit will fuck you up quick without you even noticing.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Tony says, smiling. Loki grins, and Tony wants so badly to kiss him in that moment.

The two finally make their way back outside, brushing sideways past people in the narrow hallway leading to the deck. They find a table in the back and take a seat. Slowly, over time, people they know start to filter in. Thor, Bucky, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Happy, Drax, and Peter and Gamora all make an appearance. Peter makes sure to let everyone know that they’ll be hosting an after party when the bar closes. After this announcement is made Loki looks at Tony in a way that says _you wanna go?_ and, of course, Tony does. Anything to spend more time with Loki. The group end up taking up three tables, and they trade off buying drinks for each other. Loki is on his fourth drink when he finally gets up and joins the other hoopers across the deck. The LED lights of the hoop swirl and bounce and crackle. Loki’s hips move in ways that make Tony drool, and he wonders how those hips would move on top of him. After a few songs Loki rejoins the group out of breath and sweating. He slides into the chair next to Tony, and without hesitation, he entwines his fingers with Tony’s under the table. Tony looks over at him, astonished, and Loki just looks away, a smile stapled to his face.

Thor, of course, notices this interaction, and can’t help but smile to himself. The group sit and talk until the bar closes. They talk about school and work and their families and friends who couldn’t make it and even friends that could. They drink until they’re red in the face. Tony notices Loki popping more pills, but he brushes it off with the same excuse that he did the last time he saw Loki do this.

As they’re all getting ready to leave the bar they’re standing in a group in the small parking lot. Tony and Loki are on their way to the bar, when they see Drax come up to Peter and Gamora, throwing his arms around the two of them.

“These people are the best of the worst!” Drax yells, grinning and spilling his drink down Peter’s shirt. Peter rolls his eyes, and Tony can’t help but laugh.

Later it seems like the entire bar migrates to Peter and Gamora’s house, plus at least twenty other people that Tony doesn’t recognize. Tony and Loki spend a good chunk of the night in the bathroom talking and doing coke. And then, Loki pulls out a small, round pink pill.

“Do you want to try this?” He asks Tony.

“What is it?” Tony asks, realizing that whatever Loki has been taking is certainly not Tylenol.

“It’s oxycodone. It’s an opiate, a pain killer,” Loki says, beginning to crush it down.

Tony shrugs. Experimentation is part of the learning curve, he supposes. “Sure.”

Loki finishes breaking down the pill and lines it out into two lines. They each take their line, and then head back downstairs. It’s now somewhere around 4 a.m., and Tony and Loki find a spot to sit on in the grass in the backyard. It takes about ten minutes for the pill to kick in, and after that Tony is in a daze. This is the highest he’s ever been, and it feels _amazing_. It’s that first time high, that one he knows he’ll always be chasing the rest of his life. That high that only comes with first time use.

Loki lays back in the grass, his arms propped under his head, and he sighs. Tony follows his lead, and in a moment of pure experimentation (because tonight is, apparently, all about experimentation) he reaches for Loki’s hand, entwining their fingers and he brings Loki’s hand to his mouth and lays a soft kiss against the back of his hand.

Loki looks over at him and smiles softly.

“I like you, Tony Stark. I think I really like you.”

“Me too, Loki. Me too,” Tony says.

_×××_

                The night that Tony begins to realize, to _know_ , to know deep in his heart and in his bones and in his soul that he loves Loki happens like this.

                They’re at Peter and Gamora’s house where Tony first met Loki and Thor and so, so many other glorious people. Tony’s known Loki about two months now. It’s officially winter, and classes start again in ten days. And it happens like this: they’re on the porch in the backyard and even though there’s a party raging inside the house it is only them outside. Loki is wrapped up in a blanket, singing a Glass Animals song in an off-key tone in between taking sips from the mixed drink he’s holding in his right hand and puffing on the cigarette that’s in his left hand. And when the song is over Loki starts speaking to Tony, but Tony doesn’t understand a word that’s coming out of Loki’s mouth because the dude is straight up just spitting out German in perfect flow. And Tony is in awe, as he always has been of those that can speak other languages than English. And then Loki up and switches to what Tony assumes is Russian and he can’t help but ask, “How _the fuck_ do you know Russian?”

                And Loki, he just smiles like a cat, perched on the railing of the porch, and says very simply, “My grandmother taught us.” And puffs away on his cigarette, staring at the cold sky with no stars and no moon.

                And for some reason, in that moment as Loki lights another cigarette and begins to chainsmoke, as the flame of the lighter illuminates his face and covers it in a soft glow before flickering out, illuminating the strength of his jaw and the bridge of his nose and making his eyes look hollow, this – _this_ is the moment that Tony knows. He loves Loki.

And he also knows that he is in _deep_ shit.

Tony thumbs the edges of the blanket wrapped around Loki’s shoulders, and before he can change his mind, he leans in and kisses Loki for the first time, gripping the blanket and pulling Loki closer to him. Loki is surprised at first, taken aback almost, but as reality sets in and he realizes that this – this is actually happening – he leans into the kiss, sets his drink down, and allows himself to run his fingers through Tony’s dark hair.

“Finally,” Loki breathes out in a sigh that could almost be confused for a whisper.

And so it goes.

III.

_“His eyes were the same colour as the sea in a postcard someone sends you when they love you, but not enough to stay.”  
― Warsan Shire_

There’s this weird thing between Loki and Barton, and Tony can feel the tension in the air every time he walks into a room with the two of them. The air is always thick, like they’re in the midst of a laser security system and whoever moves dies first. Metaphorically, of course. And then, one day, he finds out why. From Thor, nonetheless.

It’s a slow night at the Boobie Trap, and Tony came with Loki, but he’s off with Natasha inside singing karaoke. The deck is nearly empty, and it’s just Thor and Tony sitting in the back corner table of the deck in the dark.

Tony noticed a small interaction between Clint and Loki when Clint arrived with Natasha. There was a fire raging behind Barton’s eyes as soon as he saw Natasha run to hug Loki. And that’s when Tony finally figures out that there’s bad blood between the two. Tony want to learn everything he can about Loki at this point. He wants to know him inside and out, every freckle and scar and the meanings of his different smiles and frowns. So who better to ask than Thor?

Tony takes a sip and then as nonchalantly as possible, asks, “So, Thor, what’s the deal with Clint and Loki? I can tell they don’t like each other much.”

Thor laughs a sad little laugh and then says, “It’s much more than a dislike Tony.”

This peaks Tony’s interest even more. “So what’s the deal there?”

Thor sighs and gulps down the rest of the drink.

“I’ll tell you. But you didn’t hear this from me.”         

_—————_

_It’s 3:37 a.m. on a Friday morning and Loki is doing 90 on the interstate (his eyes are blurry, the dash lights blend together, and every time a semi passes them in the opposite lane he has to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment). Loki is going on 49 hours of no sleep, and every time he blinks he sees colorful waves of tracers appear and weave through the front seat of the car and out the windows. There’s no lying that Loki’s blood alcohol is way over the legal limit, nevermind the fact that he’s eighteen with a decent-ish fake ID, but there was no way he was going to let the Queen of Disaster drive them home. Loki glances at Nat slouched in the passenger seat with her feet on the dash, reclined half way back. She might be mostly laid down, but she is blackout drunk and when Nat gets blackout drunk she gets mean. She’s screaming at Loki over the music that Loki specifically turned up so that he didn’t have to hear her yell at him, so he wouldn’t have to hear tomorrow’s forgotten insults that make him question why he and Nat are even friends._

_“You’re a fucking asshole!” Natasha screeches in Loki’s ear, slinging her bag at his face which in turn causes him to swerve._

_“Jesus Christ, NAT! You need to calm the fuck down!” Loki screams back, trying to snatch the bag away from her and in the process smacks himself in the face with it when she lets go._

_“Oh shut up, you fucking pussy.”_

_Loki swerves back into the correct lane again, and his heart is pounding in his chest. “Nat, please, I’m just trying to get you home, okay?” Loki’s phone starts to ring in the center console, but he ignores it._

_“I fucking hate you!” Natasha screams, as she throws a lose fist at Loki’s head._

_“Nat, stop! You’re gonna get us both fuckin’ killed!”_

_Loki regrets this decision very, very much._

_“So fucking what?” Natasha laughs, slouching back in her seat once more. The cup holder is still vibrating wildly, and when Loki looks down he can see Thor’s contact photo on the screen. He said he’d be home two hours ago. Fuck._

_“Who fucking cares if we both fucking die?” Natasha says, kicking the dashboard._

_“Nat, stop you don-“_

_“Answer your fucking phone!” Nat screams at him._

_“FINE. FUCK,” Loki growls, reaching for his phone._

_“I fucking hate you, Loki. I fucking hate you so much. Fucking hit me back…” Natasha’s mumbling from beside him, but Loki’s more concentrated on answering the call from his brother and staying in the correct lane than he is about Nat’s drunken antics right now._

_“WHAT, THOR?! I’M A LITTLE BUSY,” Loki seethes, and he can still hear Nat mumbling as he scans the road for the exit he needs to take._

_“I was just calling to see if you made it home safely, Loki,” Thor’s defeated voice states from the other line._

_“Working in it,” Loki grits out as he catches Natasha’s fist mid-air and merges to the off-ramp they need to take. Loki slams the brakes at the next stop-light and put the car in park. He holds the phone away from his mouth, turning his head to look at Natasha and yells, “NATASHA, I SWEAR TO GOD, IF YOU DON”T SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP I’M GOING TO END YOU. RIGHT. FUCKING. NOW.” Loki pauses, pulling in a sharp breath, “I’m distraught. I’m sleep deprived and I’m high and I’m drunk and I do not need you pulling this bullshit while I’m trying to do you a favor and get your plastered ass home safely from a party that you didn’t even want to go to, you basic bitch. Are we clear?” Loki pauses and looks Natasha in the eye for a sign of confirmation. Natasha’s eyes are wide and she’s nodding, but she’s not saying anything, thank God._

_“Good,” Loki says and returns to his conversation with Thor. “I’m sure that whatever you just overheard paints a pretty picture as to why I’m late,” Loki hisses, slamming the car into drive and stomping on the gas. “I’ll be home soo-“_

_“LOKI!” Natasha screams, and Loki’s head whips around to see the SUV pummeling towards the passenger side of the car._

_Thor hears screams and screeching tires and metal scraping on metal, bones breaking and glass shattering. Crying, gasping. Thor hears the impact, hears Loki’s screams and cries, hears him make impact and the sickening cracking afterwards. Thor hears sobbing, and after a few seconds of silence he hears Loki whisper, “Nat?” in the smallest, saddest, grief-drenched mewl Thor has ever heard a human make. “Oh, Nat.” And all that’s left is Loki crying._

_“Loki?!” Thor yells into the screen of his phone. “Loki, can you hear me? Loki!” All he hears is the sound of shallow breathing and metal grinning on metal, of sirens, or soft sobbing somewhere close._

_—————_

_Thor checks four other ER’s in the city before he finds the one that Loki and Natasha were taken to. He’s already called his parents and Sif and Barton, or at least he thinks he has. His mind is so jumbled once he finds the correct ER._

_“I need to see my brother. He was just brought in in a car wreck. He’s eighteen, 6’2, black hair, probably brought in with a gir-“_

_“Sir, first of all I need you to calm down. Okay? Just calm down.” The room spins as Thor steadies himself and breathes._

_“Now, what’s your brother’s name?”_

_“Loki. Loki Odinson,” Thor gulps down the lump in his throat as he stares at the locked entrance to the ER unit. “I’m his brother. Thor Odinson. He… he was on the phone with me when the crash happened.” Thor feels guilt in the very depths of his bone marrow. After he says this the nurse pauses for a moment, because this guy knows more than he should technically know._

_“Okay, Mr. Odinson, I can send you back to the waiting room, but you can’t see him right now. They’re prepping him for surgery.”_

_Thor knows that at this point it’s best not to argue but to wait. So, he does. About thirty minutes later a doctor comes out to talk to him, and it all comes out in a jumble of bruisesandcontusionstornligamentsfracturedspineICUsurgeryfracturedspinefracturedspinefracturedspine._

_The first to arrive is Frigga with Odin in tow, then Barton, and finally Sif trails in about an hour after the sun comes up._

_All anybody knows at this point it the Loki fractured his spine in a couple places and one of his ribs, the latter of which punctured his lung. And Natasha… Natasha, they don’t really know much about what’s going on with her yet, other than that she had hit her head on the windshield and needed fifty stitches in the ambulance alone._

_—————_

_They end up charging Loki with a DUI, but_ _this is the first time Loki’s ever been in trouble though so he’s able to use his diversion to get out of the DUI going on his record. He’s sentenced to 100 hours of community service, three years of probation, and his license is suspended for three years with the option to convert it to a restricted license after one year – with the presence of an ignition interlock device in Loki’s car._

_Loki knows it should have been so, so much worse. Loki knows that the lightness of the sentence is in part due to his squeaky clean criminal record, but mostly it’s because of his Dad, the fucking Chief Justice of the Supreme Court._

_Loki knows he should be thankful, but the heaviness of his father’s hand on his shoulder and the disappointment in his sighs tears Loki’s heart open. Odin took a big hit for him, Odin put his career on the line to save Loki’s ass, and Loki knows that the leniency Loki received did not come about without a bit of monetary bribery. And Loki feels the wall build itself up between he and Odin after he watched Odin’s slumped, disappointed shoulder disappear upstairs after work without even a ‘hello’ or any acknowledgement that either of them knew the other was there. Odin starts to avoid Loki - at least that’s what Loki believes – so Loki starts to hibernate in his bedroom, that way at least Odin won’t have to pretend to not see him._

_And Thor, oh Thor –_

_The way that Thor looks at Loki makes him want to crawl out of his skin, those sad, drooping, brightbrightbrightsofucking **brightblue** eyes. That same sad disappointment, that same fear, that raw, bleeding, pulsing grief and mourning and loss - that same look of loss that only anchors in ones’ body when one has lost a friend far too soon, or when one has lost a brother to guilt and a broken back and lorazepam and hydrocodone and hydromorphone, or, on occasion, when both of the latter events have miraculously occurred simultaneously._

_Thor won’t admit it to anyone, but he believes the wreck was his fault. If he hadn’t called Loki then Loki would have been paying attention and Loki wouldn’t be addicted to pain killers and Natasha would be okay and they would all still be friends and Loki wouldn’t be dead on the inside._

_But Thor can’t bring himself to lift the burden of guilt from Loki, tell him that it wasn’t his fault and he needs to stop blaming himself and start blaming Thor._

_And, yet, in all of this, no one blames Natasha._

_Because even though Natasha wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, was crouched in the passenger seat, and verbally and physically assaulting the driver of the car, it was Natashsa who had to have fifty stitches put in her head in the ambulance, and it was Natasha who suffered a brain injury and was in a coma for three days. It was Natasha whose body died at 5:17 a.m. on a cold Friday morning in February and was then resuscitated, while down the hall Loki was being pumped full of morphine, but even morphine can’t stop the emotional numbness that slowly eats him from the inside out._

_—————_

“Holy shit,” Tony states, running a hand over his face. He can’t believe Loki and Natasha walked away from something like that. He can’t believe Loki and Natasha are still _alive_ , for that matter.

“Yeah,” is all Thor says, reaching for Tony’s drink and taking a gulp of it.

IV.

 _“for the fifth time this month_  
you say you’re going to leave him  
he calls you a cunt over the phone  
then walks the three miles to your house  
and kisses your mouth until the word is just  
a place on your body.  
i don’t know what brings broken people together  
maybe damage seeks out damage  
the way stains on a mattress halo into one another  
the way stains on a mattress bleed into each other.”  
― Warsan Shire

“Okay, maybe playing ‘Whose Family is Most Dysfunctional” wasn’t the best drunk idea we’ve ever had. Thor’s been crying in the bathroom for an hour. We can’t get him out…” Scott says, rubbing his neck in a guilty manner. He’s just returned from trying to coax Thor from the bathroom with very little success.

Natasha sighs and glances at Loki. Loki rolls his eyes. It’s his curse, he supposes.

“Fine, fine, I’ll go talk to him,” Loki puts his hands on his knees and stands up, wobbling a bit. He makes his way down the hall into the Peter and Gamora’s private bathroom that’s linked to their bedroom, enters the empty room without knocking, and makes his way to the bathroom door. As an afterthought he yells behind him, “BUT ME AND THOR WIN.”

There’s nervous laughter from the living room, and Loki himself laughs internally a bit. Their family really is the most dysfunctional, what with the secret adoption and Thor and Loki’s parents hiding it from the two of them until Loki was 16 and Thor was 17.

Loki knocks on the bathroom door. “Thor. Please let me in.” There’s sniffling from behind the door, but after a few moments there’s a click from the lock unlocking and the door slides open a few inches. Loki opens it, shuts it behind himself, and turns the lock once more.

Thor is sitting on the closed toilet seat, eyes and cheeks red from sobbing, his long blond hair falling out of its bun at the nape of his neck. He glances up at Loki, who wishes at that very moment that Thor wasn’t his brother and that he didn’t have to be dealing with the situation at hand. It’s a selfish thought, and Loki regrets it immediately as soon as it crosses his mind.

Loki looks at the mess of his brother, and he sighs. “Oh, Thor. Come now.”

Loki pulls the shower curtain to the side and climbs into the tub. He lays down in the tub, folding his hands together on his stomach. “We’re really not that bad, you know. Tony’s parents are dead?” Loki glances at Thor, and more tears threaten to fall from his eyes as he thinks about the fact that yes, Tony’s parents are dead. _Whoops_ , Loki thinks. He sighs, not sure of what to say.

“Look, Thor,” Loki props himself up on an elbow and looks at Thor, who won’t meet his eye. “Yeah, the whole secret adoption thing was a big deal when we found out. But… honestly. I’ve come to terms with it.”

Thor glances over at him, wiping away the fresh tears on his face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Loki says, laying back down in the bathtub. He stares at the black mold blossoming on the ceiling. “Who knows where I’d be or who I’d be if I hadn’t been brought into the family. Yeah, Odin sucked a lot at times growing up, but I can’t say he doesn’t love me. Doesn’t love _us_. They just… keeping it from you and I…. they were just doing what they thought was the best. They weren’t trying to hurt either of us, really. They were trying to protect us. I’ve done my research. Laufey was not a good man. In all reality I’m glad he’s dead and that I don’t have to struggle with making the decision to track him down or not. I’m glad that I grew up with Frigga and Odin as my parents,” Loki looks over at Thor again, whose tears have dried.

“Do you really mean that, brother?”

Loki stops for a moment, pondering the question. “Yes. I do.”

Thor nods. “I love you, Loki.”

“I love you, too, Thor.”

They sit there in silence for a few more moments, as Thor cleans himself up and Loki tries his damndest to get the room to stop spinning. “Now!” Loki sits up in the tub once more. “Would some drugs make you feel better?”

Thor chuckles like a child, standing up and turning to the sink to splash water on his face. “Sure Loki.”

Loki smiles a bit and stands up from his position in the bathtub. He and Thor switch places in the small bathroom so that Thor’s hulking figure is standing in the bathtub and Loki is standing in front of the sink. Loki pulls a small bag of cocaine from his back pocket, unties the bag, pinches the corner, and empties a generous portion onto the bathroom sink. He holds out his hand in expectation to Thor, who gives him a confused look.

“Gimme one of your cards or ID. And a bill.” Thor fishes out his wallet and pulls out one of his credit cards and a twenty dollar bill and hands it to Loki. Loki lines out the coke with the card into two large lines, and then rolls the twenty into a thin straw. He takes his line, then hands the bill to Thor as they switch places again in the small bathroom. Loki licks the edge of the credit card as Thor does his line.

“Now, brother,” Loki purrs as the numbness spreads across his lips and tongue. “Are you ready for some Drunk Jenga?”

_×××_

“Have you even been to bed yet?” Tony asks, as he closes the front door and takes his sunglasses off.

It’s 8 a.m. on a Sunday and Loki is doing coke and drinking a frozen margarita in his living room with EDM music blaring over the surround sound. Loki has been texting Tony since about 3 a.m., but Tony only woke up about an hour and a half ago.

“What do you think?” Loki replies, tapping a straw on the coaster that his current lines of coke sit on. There’s still about 3 grams in a baggie sitting on the coffee table in plain sight next to the coaster. “It’s never too early to fill my body with garbage.”

“I thought you had plans with your parents today.” Tony says loudly over the music, taking a seat next to Loki.

Loki rubs some residue on his gums. “Not anymore. Mom cancelled last night. Odin has a thing today that came up last minute.”

“Oh.” Tony states, not really knowing what to say. He feels that way a lot with Loki.

Loki snorts two lines of the coke, and then very matter of factly states, “I think I’m going to get a cat. Want to come with me?” He slurps from the frozen margarita, expectantly.

“Sure,” Tony says, again, not really knowing what else to say.

“I’m working my way up,” Loki states, “I got plants first and I was able to keep those alive, so now I’m going to get a cat. I think I can take care of a cat. Don’t you?”

 _I wish you’d just take care of yourself_ , Tony thinks, but doesn’t say anything. He just nods. He thinks Loki should get a Siamese, and he says so.

“I’m getting whatever the shelter has that’s cute and not a dog. I can’t deal with a dog.”

They leave for the shelter about an hour later, after Loki’s finished another margarita and the rest of the lines that were sitting out and has put away his stash and his kit of razors and straws that he hides in an old Sucretes tin-can. When they get to the shelter Loki fills out the new adoption papers and carries them closely to his side as they wander around, looking at all the animals – even the dogs, due to Tony’s plea “just to look at them.” Which, in the end, makes Tony a little sad that he can’t take one home with him. This is why he shouldn’t go pet shopping.

The shelter doesn’t have any Siamese, but Loki ends up picking what appears to be a fluffy tiger-striped kitten. Neither of them know that the kitten is actually a Maine Coone that will grow to take up Loki’s entire lengthy torso once he’s full grown, and weigh more than twenty pounds. But they find out, oh do they find out.

Loki finishes the adoption papers after he’s picked the cat out, and the lady at the desk says he can come back and pick the male kitten up in a couple hours. So Loki drags Tony to the local pet store, where he buys kitten food, toys, and treats for his new furry friend. He also picks out a cat crate, because Lord knows it’s a twenty minute drive from the shelter to his apartment and he has no idea how the kitten would do in the car. After they finish picking up the supplies they stop in at the café that Natasha works at during the day and get coffee. Loki admits to Tony that he hasn’t slept for almost two days, and Tony is not a bit surprised by this information. He simply sips his coffee and listens to Loki talk, as he does on most days that they spend together.

It takes Loki three days to name the cat, because “ _a good name doesn’t just come from nowhere_.” He settles on “Ares”, after the Greek god of war, because the kitten is a little hellion and much more than he expected from a cat of this age. The kitten has grey and black tiger stripes running up his back and legs, and bright yellow eyes.

But, despite having no name yet, Loki falls asleep with the kitten cradled on his chest soon after he and Tony get back to his apartment, with his long legs spread across Tony’s lap. Tony pulls a blanket from the back of couch and covers the duo the best that he can, and turns on the TV. He watches Loki and the kitten more than he watches the television, but it’s partially to make sure Loki is still breathing.

_×××_

“Your mistakes do not define you,” Thor whispers, wrapping a large hand around the back of Loki’s neck and pulling Loki’s head to his equally large chest. “They don’t, little brother.”

                Loki sniffles, reaching a hand up to wipe away some tears. Thor feels Loki’s cat near his knees, its long tail wrapping and swaying around his legs. The cat doesn’t meow or make a sound – he’s noticed in the few times he’s been here that the cat isn’t very vocal, only meowing this soft, broken meow when Loki calls him in from sunbathing on the balcony.

“What I create is chaos,” Loki says. He looks up, tears staining his cheeks. His hands are shaking. “I don’t like neatness. I want impulsive, improvised chaos.”

                Thor’s shoulders slump, and he bows his head, his long blond hair hiding his face. “I know, Loki. I know.”

                Thor takes in Loki’s current disposition: he’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt that belong to their university, clothes Loki never wears unless he’s hiding himself inside the apartment. His hair is stringy and a bit greasy, this tangled mess that hasn’t been brushed for days. There’s dark circles under his eyes that show that he hasn’t been sleeping well, if at all. His lips are cracked and chapped, and Thor catches him more than once biting them, gnawing on the broken skin.

                “Have you spoken to Tony? Or Nat?” Thor asks, genuinely concerned.

                Loki shakes his head. “No. I’ve been ignoring everyone the last couple days.” Thor looks at Loki’s phone on the table and clicks the lockscreen on, swiping it to unlock it. There’s 30 unread text notifications from the past two days. Thor sighs. At least five of those texts are from him, just from this morning.

“Here, love,” Thor says, pulling Loki by his limp and trembling arms up to the couch. “Let’s get you showered and into some clean clothes, first. Then, if you want, we can go get lunch. If not, we can order in. You need to eat _something_.” Thor knows how Loki gets when he gets like this.

Loki sniffles again, looking away and entwining his hands together. After a moment he nods.

Thor gets him to the shower and leaves him to undress. Shortly after he hears the shower turn on and breathes a heavy sigh of relief. This is progress, at least. He goes into Loki’s bedroom and finds another pair of sweats, a pair of briefs, and another t-shirt for Loki to change into and sets them in the bathroom. He then looks on his phone for delivery that Loki might like, because he knows there’s no getting him out of the house today. He settles on pizza and cheese sticks, because even if Loki won’t eat the pizza he’ll eat the cheese sticks, this Thor knows.

Loki emerges from the shower with the clean clothes on and a towel over his head, one hand drying his hair while the other searches for a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. He finds it and lights one, inhaling deeply as he dries his hair with the other hand.

“Thank you, Thor,” Loki says quietly.

Thor smiles. “No problem, Loki. It’s what I’m here for.”

Loki curls up on the couch with his knees to his chest and lets his chin rest on his knees. Thor turns on the TV and relaxes back into the couch, and Loki finally gets around to replying to the worried text messages he’s received over the last few days. The last few from Tony read like a jumble of sickened worry.

Tony, 12:37 a.m.: Loki, where are you?

Tony, 1:22 a.m.: Please be okay.

Tony, 3:56 a.m.: I can’t sleep. I’m so worried about you. Where are you? Are you okay? Please. Please just answer me.

Tony, 7:00 a.m.: I’m calling Thor.

The last message almost feels like a threat, but Loki knows it wasn’t meant that way. He texts Tony back, and gets an almost instantaneous response.

Loki, 11:43 a.m.: Hey Tony. Look, I’m really sorry that I went AWOL the last few days. I’ve been in a really bad spot mentally and emotionally. I’m sorry. I get bad at communicating when I get like this. Next time just… come over, okay? Thor is here. Thank you for calling him. He got me motivated to take a shower and ordered me food. I don’t remember the last time I changed my clothes or ate. I’m sorry, I’m rambling. Would you like to come over?

Tony,11:45 a.m.: Oh, thank God, you’re alive. I’m just happy you’re okay, Lo. I understand. I mean I don’t, but it’s okay. There’s nothing to be sorry for. You were having a rough time and handling it the only way you know how to. Let me get dressed and I’ll be there. See you soon. xx

Loki reads through the rest of Tony’s messages, which as they go on become more frantic and more worried. He reads the messages from Natasha, and replies to her to let her know he’s alive and that he’s okay. He was just having another episode. Loki feels a pit of guilt open in his stomach, and he needs a Xanax so, so bad. He wants to cry. He hates himself for worrying his friends and his brother, whose texts he also reads through quickly to get it over with. Loki wants to crawl into a hole and hide from the world, much more so than he did ten minutes ago. Instead he sighs and lets his forehead drop against his knees. He hits a closed fist against his temple _one, two, three, four_ times before he feels Thor’s hand reach over to stop him.

“Loki, stop. Stop trying to hurt yourself,” Thor whispers. _You do enough of that already_.

“I’m sorry, Thor. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to come over here and take care of me. You shouldn’t have to. It shouldn’t be your job. I’m sorry I put you in that position. I’m sorry Tony had to be the one to call you. I’m sorry I’m such a bother to everyone,” Loki keeps apologizing, keeping his gaze on the floor unwilling to meet Thor’s eyes.

“Loki, you are not a burden. You’re not. You’re not a bother or a nuisance, and you don’t need to be sorry for needing help. You are none of the things those evil voices in your head tell you you are, okay? You don’t need to be sorry that you get like this sometimes. I’m your brother. It’s my job to take care of you when you need it and-” The doorbell rings. “Hold on.” Thor answers the door. It’s the pizza delivery guy. Thor pays for their food and comes back, handing one box to Loki and setting the other box on the table. “Eat. You need it.” Loki opens the box cautiously, not knowing what Thor had ordered for him. Once he sees the cheese sticks he brightens a little. Thor is one of the only people who understand his eating habits and his pickiness.

“Look, Loki. You’re a good person. You don’t suck as a human being. What sucks is your mental illness, which keeps you from functioning like other people. And sometimes you can’t help how bad it gets. And I understand that. And I think Tony will understand that, too. He seems to really like you, and I don’t think it’ll be something that would scare him off, y’know?” Loki nods in agreement and understanding. He hopes Tony will understand this, too.

Loki eats his cheese sticks while Thor eats the pizza he ordered. Loki ends up eating the whole box in one sitting. He tries to think back to the last thing that he ate, but he can’t remember when or what it was. The food is good, and he needed it, but once he’s done eating he feels so, _so_ full. Full of _guilt_ for eating so much at once, for eating at all. Sometimes Loki tells himself that he doesn’t deserve food, and this is one of those times that the line is running through his head. He wants to cry. He wants to make himself sick, but with the look that Thor is shooting him _he knows_ Thor _knows_ , and he can’t bring himself to do it with Thor a mere few feet away. So he sits and stares at the wall, lights a cigarettes and swallows the smoke that burns the back of his throat. He sets the cigarette in the ashtray and goes to the kitchen to get himself a glass of milk and brings it back to the living room. Loki resumes smoking his cigarette and flips through the channels on the television, looking for something to watch with Thor.

About ten minutes later there’s a knock at the door. Thor glances over to Loki, questioningly.

“It’s Tony,” Loki says, moving to get up.

“I got it,” Thor says, nodding and smiling. Thor answers the door and there is Tony, with a bouquet of coral gladioli and a half-gallon of chocolate milk. There’s a smile plastered on his face, and it grows even bigger when he finally sees Loki. Thor and Tony greet each other and Thor returns to his seat as Tony enters the apartment and closes the door behind him.

“Hey, Tony,” Loki says, forcing himself to smile a bit.

“Hey, Loki. I thought these might brighten your day. And I know you love chocolate milk,” Tony states, handing the flowers to Loki and taking the milk to the kitchen to put in the refrigerator. Thor gives Loki an almost _satisfied_ , cat-that-just-caught-a-mouse look. Loki just rolls his eyes and buries his nose in the flowers, taking a long inhale of their scent. He then sets the flowers on the middle of the coffee table. There’s a lightness in his chest. No one has ever bought him flowers before. Especially never just to “brighten his day.”

Tony returns from the kitchen and immediately walks over to Loki, wrapping the other man up in a hug. Tony squeezes Loki tightly, breathing in the scent of his oatmeal body wash and coconut shampoo. He leans his forehead against Loki’s for a moment, staring down at him.

“I’m so happy that you’re okay,” Tony whispers, and then kisses Loki deeply, cupping both his cheeks in each hand. Again and again, Tony kisses him. Loki soaks it up, the kisses touching the depths of his soul. It’s nice to feel cared about.

“If you want to call it that,” Loki whispers back. Tony gives him a strange, confused look, so Loki follows up his statement by saying, “Erm, I’m getting there, I guess. I’m not really okay yet, but I will be.” Tony nods, smiling, and reaches down to squeeze Loki’s hand. Loki looks down, feeling a bit awkward and not knowing what to say, he rubs his hands against his thighs.

Tony has never seen Loki like this before. He’s never seen Loki during a rough patch, when Loki can barely dress himself or feed himself or do much of anything, really. He’s never seen Loki’s hair in any way but down, and now it’s pulled back into a ponytail. He’s never seen him in sweats before. Loki is almost always immaculate in his clothing choices and his appearance. It’s an odd sight to Tony, but Tony can tell this isn’t the first time, nor the last, that he will see Loki in this state. Little does he know that the next time it happens he will be the one taking care of Loki instead of Thor. However, this will involve lots of calls to Thor when trying to figure out what to do and how to help Loki when he gets so depressed that all he can do is sleep and cry and hole himself up in his apartment.

Tony takes a seat in the loveseat next to the couch, and reaches for Loki’s hand. Loki obliges, and Tony rubs his thumb along Loki’s own thumb, squeezing every so often.

“Thank you for the flowers. They’re very pretty. No one’s ever given me flowers before,” Loki says, almost a little embarrassed.

“Really? That’s kind of hard to believe, to be honest. But I’m glad you like them,” Tony smiles.

Tony sits with them, then, watching a marathon of old episodes of _Law and Order: Special Victims Unit_. None of them talk much, but he hopes that at least the company is helping Loki.

Around 9 p.m. Thor decided that it’s time to leave. “Tony, can you stay for a while longer? I need to go, but I don’t want to leave Loki alone.”

“Yeah. I mean, I can stay the night, if needed.” He glances at Loki for an answer. He knows how Loki likes his space, but the company has seemed to help so far, and he thinks that Loki being alone right now may not be the safest idea. Loki thinks for a moment before slowly nodding.

“Yeah, I would like that, if it doesn’t put you out, Tony.”

“Of course not!” Tony smiles, happily. This is the first time he’s been invited to stay the night, and despite the circumstances, he is practically _giddy_.

“Okay, good. I’ll be on my way then,” Thor says. “See you later, little brother. Call me in the morning,” Thor says, hugging Loki and kissing him on the forehead before he leaves.

Once Thor is out the door, Loki gets up and locks it behind him. He settles back into the couch, sighing a large sigh of relief. He stares up at the ceiling. “I thought he was never going to leave. He takes the ‘I’m my brother’s keeper’ shit way too seriously.”

“Yeah, but he helped though, didn’t he?” Tony asks, curious.

“Yeah,” Loki says, reaching down into the coffee table for his stash of all things illegal and good in the world. He pulls out a prescription bottle of pills and pops three of them, then pulls out a vial of coke from the same _Harry Potter_ tin box that he keeps all his drugs in. He breaks down several lines on a glass coaster while he continues talking. “When I get like this most of the time I just want to be high. I’m so low that I’ve got to get high. And I can’t do all the things I want to do around Thor. He’s fine with the pills because half of them are actually _my_ prescription. But he would call this amount of coke a little… _excessive_. Coke is for partying, not for when you’re home alone watching TV and not doing anything. At least, that’s the way Thor looks at it.” Loki finishes lining out the coke, then licks the razor for a bit of a nummy on his tongue.

Tony, well, he’s not quite sure what to say. Part of him agrees with Thor’s attitude, while the other is screaming, “ _It’s a free fucking country, do whatever the fuck you want Loki. You do you, boo._ ”

Loki takes a couple lines, then offers the coaster to Tony. Tony doesn’t decline the offer – why that would be rude – and takes a couple lines himself.

“So, Loki, I have to ask,” Tony says, feeling his heart quicken in an anxiety inducing manner from the coke. Loki glances at him, raising an eyebrow, then takes two more lines. “What happened? What brought this on?”

Loki leans back on the couch, chewing on his cheek while he thinks. He doesn’t really know how to phrase what he wants to say. “I don’t know to be honest. Sometimes it just happens out of nowhere. And I don’t know why. I just lose my mind and get extremely depressed to the point that I can’t function for a few days. Sometimes there’s a trigger and sometimes there’s not. It’s weird, you know? But this time it was bad. Really bad. I was having suicidal thoughts, really serious thoughts almost constantly. I want to hurt myself, Tony. I couldn’t eat, I felt like I don’t deserve to. And when I did eat today I wanted to make myself sick because of guilt. I couldn’t shower. I basically couldn’t take care of myself. I could barely force myself out of bed, and I almost forgot to feed Ares and give him fresh water. I could barely make myself get up to even do that. I couldn’t leave the apartment. I couldn’t call or text anyone back, obviously. I’m just not myself. I feel extremely out of place. Like I don’t belong here. Like I don’t deserve to live anymore. I have no energy. I’m fucking exhausted. _This_ is fucking exhausting.” Loki looks at him, sadly and tiredly. Loki’s frowning and he looks like he’s about to cry.

“Oh, Loki. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry that you have to go through that. How long has this been going on?” Tony moves closer to Loki, and Loki leans into him, resting his head on his shoulder. He begins to cry silently, tears streaking his cheeks. Tony runs his fingers through Loki’s hair, pulling it free from its ponytail and letting the strands fall free across his face.

Loki sniffs, and stares ahead, his fingers fiddling with each other between his legs. “About four years. Maybe five. It started when I was still in high school.” Loki feels a pit grow in his stomach. He doesn’t know if he should have opened up about all of that. He doesn’t want to scare Tony away.

Tony doesn’t quite know what to say. He shaken a bit by what Loki has said. From how Loki normally is he would have never guessed that Loki had all these problems. He would have never guessed that Loki was this.. _broken_. That Loki was this _sad_. But he is, and Tony, well, he’s figures that he just has to find a way to deal with it. They’ve known each other for about six months at this point, and he thinks he might be falling in love with Loki. And he’s not going to throw that away just because Loki is sick. So he takes a leap, and hopes he doesn’t regret it after he says it.

“Loki, I think I’m falling in love with you. And I don’t think I’ve ever loved someone the way that I love you. I truly don’t. This is a bit scary for me, but scary in a good way. It’s just different. And I don’t want to scare you with that. I don’t. But it’s how I feel. And you don’t have to be afraid anymore. Because you have me. I’ll take care of you. I’ll be there for you, good and bad.” Tony takes a deep breath in, and looks down at Loki.

Loki sits up straight, and Tony’s hand falls so that it’s cupping the back of his head. He’s quiet for a moment, and he’s giving Tony this strange, questioning look. The silence between them is deafening, and Tony starts to back pedal.

“Look, I’m sorry if I said something wrong, I just-” Tony stutters before Loki cuts him off.

“I love you, too.” Loki says, wiping tears away with the heel of his hand.

“Really?” Tony feels like Loki might be fucking with him. But if he’s not…

“Yeah. Really. I love you, Tony. I’ve never loved anyone like I love you. And it’s scary as fuck. I know exactly what you mean when you say that.” Loki laughs a small little laugh, and wipes away more tears. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Tony is confused. He rubs his fingers in Loki’s hair, scratching his scalp.

Loki giggles at the feeling and leans into it, wanting more of it. “I don’t know. For crying, I guess.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. Cry all you want to.”

Tony leans his head down, touching foreheads with Loki. He likes being close like this. Then, Tony kisses Loki. Loki sighs into the kiss, and kisses him back even harder. They move very quickly then, from kisses to tongues to hands on each other’s bodies, to tugging and pulling at articles of clothing until they’re both naked and their bodies are moving in poetic motion against each other. Tony breaks away from Loki for a moment, only to retrieve the lubrication from Loki’s bedroom where he knows it’s hidden. When he returns he can’t help but thinking that Loki is absolutely breathtaking, a display of light skin and dark hair lying on the couch just waiting eagerly for him to return.

He pins Loki to the couch, kissing him and nibbling at his lips, grinding his hips down into Loki’s.

“Hurry up,” Loki sighs. He has no patience for foreplay this evening.

So Tony does. He pours a generous amount of lube into his hand, rubbing it over his fingers. He bites at Loki’s neck as he searches for his opening, and once he does he slides a finger in, making Loki gasp. Tony smiles as he works his finger in and out, then adds another, making Loki gasp again. Loki is breathing hard, his mouth open and his eyes wide. Tony loves Loki when he’s like this, all desperate and wanting and needing him. Tony removes his fingers and aligns his cock with Loki’s opening, and slowly pushes himself inside. Loki’s hands instantly go from above his head to Tony’s arms, squeezing and digging his nails into Tony. Loki moans, loudly, and squeezes his eyes shut tightly. Tony knows this part hurts, so he goes slowly at first, until Loki’s grip on his arms has loosened. Then it’s free game, and Tony is grinding his hips down into Loki’s until they’re both moaning and sighing and gasping for breath. Loki is stroking his own cock to the same rhythm that Tony has going, and it’s a sight that makes Tony even harder than he thought was possible.

“Faster,” Loki pleads.

“You got it,” Tony replies, smiling happily down at him.

Tony jerks Loki closer to him by his thighs, until he’s fully inside Loki, down to the base of his cock. He keeps his hands on Loki’s thighs for leverage and quickens his pace. Loki’s free hand is on his stomach now, trying to find something to hold on to. They’ve got a rhythm down, and it’s good. _It’s_ _so good_. Tony has never had this type of sexual chemistry with another person before, and he loves it. He gets Loki and Loki gets him in bed, and it is truly wonderful how they mesh together. Loki is a straight up moaning mess, and Tony loves how he can reduce Loki to this state.

“I’m gonna come,” Loki moans, staring up at Tony through half open eyes, pushing his hips upwards into Tony. He lets his head fall back over the arms of the couch and arches his back up even more. Loki begins stroking himself even faster and harder than before.

Tony moves his hands down to grip Loki’s hips, his grip nearly bruising them. But he knows Loki won’t mind, that he considers them love marks. He moves faster, rolling his hips up, trying to find that spot inside Loki. And when he does Loki jerks, his eyes rolling back, and a loud moan falling out of his mouth.

“Fuuuuuck. There. Do that again.” So Tony obliges and hits that same spot over and over and over until Loki is coming, the orgasm rolling through him like a wave. When the orgasm is done his head falls to the side, and his body slumps down limply into the couch.

“Fuck,” Tony whispers to himself. He slows down a bit, and he only lasts a few more minutes before he’s coming inside Loki, his nails dragging down Loki’s thighs leaving light red marks. He falls against Loki, panting. Loki wraps his arms around Tony and kisses him.

“I love you, Tony.” Loki says, smiling. It’s the first time Loki has truly smiled in days.

“I love you, too, Loki,” Tony says, smiling back. He kisses Loki on the cheek, the nose, the lips, before nuzzling his face into Loki’s neck. They stay like that for a few minutes until they’ve caught their breath.

“Shower?” Loki suggests.

“Yes,” Tony replies.

They shower together and then return to the living room. Loki lights a cigarette and inhales deeply, leaning back into the cough and placing the ashtray on the top of his crossed legs.

“Thank you, Tony. For everything. It really means a lot to me.”

“You’re welcome.” Tony says.

Loki sleeps soundly that night, with Tony beside him, for the first time in what feels like forever. He sleeps through the night, something that’s rare for him. And when he wakes he’s happy to see Tony snoring lightly next to him. He lets Tony sleep in, and goes to have a morning cigarette with Ares on the balcony. He glances around, at the city, at Ares sunbathing on the balcony next to him, and he thinks of Tony, still asleep in his bed. And for the first time in a long time he feels satisfied.

—————

Three months later, almost like clockwork, Loki has another episode. Anything he eats he throws up, not out of force but out of anxiety. After a day he stops even trying to eat, the taste of bile in his throat a constant deterrent from food. He doesn’t brush his teeth or shower or even change his clothes. He certainly doesn’t leave his apartment. He barely sleeps. All Loki can bring himself to do is cocoon himself in a blanket on the couch and watch shitty daytime television. He wants to call his mom, just to say hello, but he doesn’t. Its starts to get bad, to the point that all he can think about is hurting himself – of cutting open his wrists or of burning himself with cigarettes. When he gets to the point that he’s borderline suicidal, he does something that he hasn’t done in a long time – he reaches out. He calls Tony.

“Hey babe, what’s going on?” Tony says when he picks up the phone.

“Tony… I-I need help. Please.” Loki mumbles. He doesn’t know how else to put it.

“What’s wrong?” Tony’s voice is suddenly very serious, and the tone of his voice is very low.

“It’s happening again. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. Tony. Please.” Loki’s beginning to cry, and Tony can hear the sorrow and desperation in his voice. “I’m going to hurt myself this time, Tony. I can just sense it. I can’t take this anymore.”

Tony’s heart drops. He stops what he’s doing and starts packing an overnight bag while he still has Loki on the phone. “Hurt yourself how? Loki?” He’s starting to panic now, and he’s packing his stuff up as quickly as he possibly can.

“I-I… just, please. Can you come over?” Loki whispers.

“Already working on it. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, okay? Please try not to hurt yourself, Loki. I’ll be there soon.”

Loki’s crying harder now. “Okay.”

“I love you, Loki.” Tony says quickly before Loki can hang up.

“I love you too.” Loki can’t help but say it back. It’s force of habit.

Loki hangs up the phone and pulls his drug kit out of the coffee table. He pops two 20mg oxycodone and closes his eyes. There’s multiple razors in the kit, and Loki can’t stop thinking about them. They’re so fucking close, all he has to do is… _No_. He stops himself. What would Tony think? What would he _do_? Loki doesn’t really want to find out, but the urges are so strong. Loki sighs and slumps back into the couch, staring at the TV and waiting anxiously for Tony to arrive.

Tony arrives around the time he said he would be there. Loki yells for him to come in, as the door is unlocked and he can’t force himself to get off the couch at that moment. Loki looks at Tony sadly, a frown stuck to his lips. He wipes away tears that just won’t stop falling, and then wraps his blanket around himself even more tightly, snuggling into it.

“Hey,” Tony says, sitting down next to Loki. He brushes Loki’s hair behind his ear, and tilts his head so that he can better see Loki’s face. Loki’s eyes are normally a bright emerald color that glint in the light or shine when he smiles – now they’re a dull and clouded forest green, glazed with inattention and pain and sadness. “What’s wrong, babe?”

“Everything,” Loki says, staring at the floor. He reaches into the _Harry Potter_ tin that holds all his drugs and pulls out the pill bottle that contains a concoction of illegal painkillers. He pops two more oxycodone. If he’s going to go through this shit, he’s not going to do it sober.

“Loki, how many of those have you taken?” Tony asks, concern dripping from his voice. The worst possible scenarios keep running through his head.

“Including those, just four. I’m just trying to take the edge off.” Loki’s arms and legs are beginning to tingle, and his head is feeling clearer but cloudy at the same time. He feels relaxed, surprisingly. And all Tony can think about is the words Loki had said to him on the phone – _I’m going to hurt myself this time_ – they just keep running through his head constantly, over and over again.

“Loki, do I… do I need to take you to a crisis intake center? I feel like-”

“No.” Loki cuts Tony off quickly. “No, I won’t go.” Loki’s shaking his head vigorously, his eyes begging Tony not to suggest such a thing or to ever bring it up again.

“Okay then. I guess we’ll just have to ride this storm out at home, then.” Tony squeezes Loki’s shoulder, and Loki flinches. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Do you want something to eat? I can make you something.” Tony suggests.

“No. I don’t want anything.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

Loki sighs, not wanting to answer the question. He pauses for a moment, before answering. “Two days ago. Everything that I tried eating yesterday just came back up.”

“Loki, you need to eat. Please.”

“No!” Loki snaps. _I should have just lied and said I ate today_ , Loki thinks. _I should have just lied._ “You don’t understand,” he sighs and lights a cigarette. “Every time I try to eat I get sick from anxiety. I can’t keep anything down. It’s a waste of food, and I’m tired of puking. Tony please, just stop.”

Tony stays silent, not knowing what to say. He lets out a sigh of frustration, holding his head in his hands.

“I don’t know what you want me to do here Loki.”

“Just be here. Please. Don’t leave me alone.”

“Okay.” Tony nods. He doesn’t quite understand what’s going on or what’s going to happen or what to expect, but he’s in this. He’s in this for Loki. Because Loki needs him.

Loki doesn’t really sleep that night, maybe four hours at best. And it’s not from the coke, because Tony falls asleep easily on it. It’s been cut four times over, and is from the guy that Loki gets it from when he usual guy is unavailable. Loki watches the Late Shows, the three re-runs of various shows that come on after them, and then watches the overnight world news repeat on a loop three times in the early hours of the morning before he finally falls asleep.

The second day isn’t much different from the first. There’s a storm that day. Thunder claps and crinkles near the apartment while lightening lights up the sky with explosions of energy, startling the both of them at times. The rain is torrential, and it would be nearly impossible to go out and do anything in the downpour that covers the city even if they wanted to. Loki watches the rain, sitting huddled on the couch most of the day. He continues to refuse to eat. He skips class, and instead he pops pills every couple hours or so when his high begins to fade away. He takes shots of vodka with cranberry chasers every ten minutes for several hours until he’s on the verge of being drunk. They watch TV and sit mostly in silence. Loki asks Tony to hide all the sharp objects he can find in the apartment, including Loki’s kit to break down coke and pills, so Tony does. The urges get stronger and stronger until they’re all that are running through Loki’s mind. Tony is at a loss for what to do. What can he even do in this situation? He doesn’t know what he can do to help, but he supposes just his presence is some form of comfort for Loki.

Loki’s mind feels disconnected from his body. The weight of breathing is too much, and it’s almost a struggle. He digs his nails into his palms to try to feel something until his hands and fingernails are bloody. And when that doesn’t work he burns the inside of his wrist with a cigarette. Tony watches him do this, half horrified, half entranced. The burn mark leaves a small, almost perfectly circular burn on Loki’s wrist, and Loki can’t help but stare at it, wishing it was a blade ripping open his skin rather than a small burn mark. By then end of the day there’s several more burns on various parts of his arms. Tony doesn’t question this. He doesn’t agree with what Loki’s doing to himself, and it hurts him to see it, but it’s a coping mechanism. An unhealthy one, but a least it’s something. At least Loki isn’t slicing open his wrists, Tony thinks, remembering how Loki had asked him to hide all the blades in the apartment. All Tony can think about are Loki’s words: _I’mgoingtohurtmyselfthistime. I’mgoingtohurtmyselfthistime. I’mgoingtohurtmyselfthistime._ Loki feels restless, like he needs to do something, to move around, but he doesn’t have the energy. He doesn’t feel like he even has the energy to breathe, let alone try to find another coping skill to use. His body is at war with his mind, and his mind is in a war in and of itself.

The third day is by far the worst. Loki’s buzzing, his arms and legs ablaze with ghost pains. He sits, huddled on the couch, as he has for the last several days, but now something is different. Something is even more off. He feels almost completely detached from his body. He can feel when Tony touches him, but the feeling is more like numbness pressing itself into Loki’s body. However, his veins course with fire and his nerves spark with every quickened heartbeat that passes. He can hear his blood pulsing in his ears, feel it in his fingertips. The feeling scares him so much that he doesn’t want to move. He feels trapped inside his own body, inside his own mind, and the thoughts and urges have only sped up. They’ve quickened to near constant noise in the back of his mind, constantly sitting there and pushing him to do something, anything. The voice is Loki’s, but it’s different in a way he can’t describe. It’s him but it isn’t him at the same time. Loki thinks what it would be like to jump off the balcony into traffic below. He wonders if he would hit the concrete or a car, he wonders if he would die on impact or if he would just break several bones. Loki sits, staring blankly at the wall, and he thinks of different ways to die. The television in the background simply crackles with noise, but he can’t make out what its saying. The voice in his mind is telling him he wants to die, but Loki knows that isn’t true. It’s just the voice telling him awful things again and again and again. When his body burns too badly with the need for movement he turns on music and grabs the hula hoop in the corner of the room, and he dances. He lets Tony watch as he passes the hoop back and forth between his hands and legs, lets it wrap around his body in a swirl of light. He dances until he can’t breathe and the numbness in his limbs is replaced by the burning of muscles that haven’t been used for months. Tony hasn’t seen Loki dance for a very long time, and it’s a relief to see him simply _do_ _something_ , even if it’s sudden and out of nowhere. After Loki is done, he collapses back into the couch, his sudden burst of energy completely exhausted. He curls back into himself, turns the music off, and finds a movie on Netflix.

There’s silence for a long time after that, until Loki finally breaks it.

“Do you know what it’s like to be afraid of your own mind?” Loki laments. He pauses for a moment, glancing at Tony, and then down at his hands. He raises a hand to his mouth and begins biting his nails. “It’s hard to trust my own version of the world. Everyone has their own version of the world, you know. The way they perceive it?” It’s not a question, but Tony feels obligated to answer. Before he can Loki continues. “I’m somewhere between giving up and seeing how much more I can take.” Loki’s glinting green eyes fall on Tony’s, and Tony pauses to think about what to say for once.

“It won’t last forever, you know. The way you’re feeling will change, even if it doesn’t feel like it now.” Tony gives himself a proverbial gold star. “You’re not alone in this. We’ll get through it together.” Tony doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to regret those words in the future. He doesn’t know exactly what bullshit is pouring out of his mouth, or what the words really mean to Loki at the time, but they sound good.  They sound poetic, and supportive, and that’s what Tony thinks Loki needs to hear right now.

Loki meditates on this for a moment, continuing to bite his nails and stare at anything but Tony. Finally, he asks, “Where are your car keys?”

Tony motions towards the stand near the front door where Loki leaves his house keys. “Get them. Let’s go for a drive.”

Tony is downright gleeful. He’s been cooped up in this apartment for nearly four days at this point, and he was trying to think of excuses to leave for even just a few minutes.

So, they get in the car and they drive. Tony hands Loki the aux cord, and Loki pulls up a playlist on his phone and blasts it over the speakers. Tony doesn’t recognize the song, but the low sultry voice soothes his anxieties. Loki turns up the music and lets the music take over his soul. It’s a cleansing of sorts, and it feels divine. They drive for what seems like hours, just driving around the city until they finally make it out and hit a country road. They get lost for a while, in the music and the dark pine trees that tower over the sides of the road. Loki continues to play music, and the music give Tony a deeper look into Loki’s soul. It’s dark and lyrical and sad and drug fueled. Just like Loki is. And Tony feels an overwhelming sense of love course through him. He cares deeply about Loki, but he doesn’t know how to deal with Loki’s mental health. Of course he doesn’t say this or hint at it. He assumes that in time things will get better. He doesn’t know how wrong he is.

On the fourth day Tony wakes up to voices in the front room. He pulls himself out of Loki’s bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and when he looks at the clock he realizes that it’s only 7:30 in the morning. He wonders how much Loki actually slept, but that thought falls away when he enters the living room and sees a hulking figure sitting close to Loki on the couch. Loki and the other man are talking quietly, and Tony believes that it’s in order not to bother him or wake him. He’s correct in this, but Tony instantly has a bad feeling in his gut when he sees the man on the couch next to Loki. Tony purposefully makes noise as he enters the room, so that Loki and the other man turn around when he enters.

“Morning,” Tony mumbles, falling into the love seat. He glances at the man next to Loki. There’s purple scars decorating what’s visible of the man’s face under his gold hoodie, and on one hand a series of rings, each engraved with a different color of gemstone. The sleeves of his hoodie are pushed up, and Tony can see that the rest of that arm is covered in intricate gold tattoos and bracelets. He doesn’t necessarily feel intimidated, but he feels something pulling in his gut that this guy is bad news. And of course, Tony wonders why he’s here, sitting on the couch with Loki so goddamn early in the morning.

Loki nods at Tony in recognition, and then turns back to the other man. “Thanks for coming by so early. It’s appreciated.”

“No problem, I was still awake anyways. Too geeked out to sleep.” Loki nods and laughs, understanding what the man means. The man then reaches out his hand, and Loki slaps it and then presses his knuckles against the other man’s in a handshake. The man slaps Loki on the back in a goodbye, nods his head at Tony, picks up a large black book bag Tony hadn’t previously noticed on the floor, and leaves.

Tony waits a few moments after the door closes until he asks, “Who was that?”

“That was Thanos. He’s the Pill Guy. He gave me these today,” Loki says, holding up a small, almost triangular white pill that’s scored with an 8 and a line down the opposite side. “Hydromorphone, eight milligrams. I haven’t seen these fuckers in a minute. They’re truly lovely pills.” Tony isn’t super familiar with the names of pills, but he recognizes the pills as Dilaudid, and he knows just how powerful one of those little pills is.

“Can you grab my kit form where you hid it? Please?” Loki pleads, his eyes shining with delight. Tony wants to say no, but it’s the happiest he’s seen Loki in days, so he obliges. Tony has to remember where he hid the box of sharp objects first, and once he finds it stuffed in the back of Loki’s closet he pulls the Sucretes can out and takes it to Loki.

“Just give it back once you’re finished.”

Loki nods and takes the kit from Tony, immediately snapping off a half of a pill and crushing it up it a small blue bowl. He then lines out four small lines on a coaster, snorts two of them, and then offers the other two to Tony.

“Be careful though. They’re really strong,” Loki warns.

Tony rolls his eyes, thinking he can keep up with Loki. Thinking Loki doesn’t have a ridiculously high tolerance to pain killers at this point. Tony is very, very wrong. He snorts the two lines, and waits. As Loki is watching the news he feels a warm wave wash over him, followed by an overwhelming nausea. Before Tony knows what’s happening his stomach is turning and flipping, and he’s rushing to the bathroom so he can puke up everything in his stomach. Even though he just puked, he still feels warm and numb and sleepy. He brushes his teeth and returns to the living room.

“You okay?” Loki asks, grinning slightly with an _I Told You So_ look written all over his face.

“Yeah. Didn’t expect that though,” Tony says, sighing as he sits back down. His eyes feel heavy, and as he tries to watch the morning news with Loki he finds himself nodding out every few moments. Tony feels like he needs a drink, so he asks Loki to make him one, despite it only being a little after 8. He’s going to be here all day again, might as well have a few drinks, he thinks. The alcohol intensifies the nod from the pills, and after a while Tony can’t help but fall asleep sitting up on the loveseat. When he wakes up it’s to another hulking figure and a booming voice. _Thor_. Tony sits up from his slouch and glances around, feeling dizzy and like he just entered back into the Earth’s atmosphere. Everything is a bit blurry, and it takes several minutes for his eyes to adjust and for him to feel like he can move his body. Loki and Thor are talking, but it takes Tony a moment to register what they’re saying.

“Mother has been worried, Loki. She called me today and said she hasn’t heard form you for several days, that you haven’t called her back,” Thor says, his eyes full of worry. “What has been going on? Where have you been?”

Loki is silent, staring at Thor’s feet. _I like your new shoes_ , he thinks.

“Loki? Brother, please, talk to me.”

“I’ve been here. I’ve been in another episode. It started a few days ago. This one was bad, Thor. Really bad,” Loki says, and glances at the Sucretes can on the table. He can’t stop thinking about the razors that lie inside.

“Oh, Loki,” Thor says, his voice instantly saddening. Tony can see Thor’s heart break. “Are you safe? Did you hurt yourself?”

Loki shakes his head, but Thor doesn’t know which question Loki is saying no to, until he notices Loki fidgeting with the ends of his sleeves. Thor has known Loki his entire life, being only a year and a half older than him. He knows Loki’s tells and his habits, and he still remembers the first time he noticed marks on Loki’s arms when Loki was only twelve.

“Tony’s been here most of the time,” Loki states. Thor nods his head in understanding.

“I’ve been trying to help. To at least keep him safe,” Tony interjects. The ‘ _from himself’_ part of the last sentence goes unspoken. “I thought about calling you, Thor, but I didn’t really know what to do at all, so I did the best I could. I still can’t get him to eat though.” Tony catches Loki’s glare and shrugs his shoulders. He’s not going to lie to Thor, especially when Thor seems to know what to do when this happens to Loki. Plus Tony is starting to seriously worry about Loki’s eating habits, and he figures that if anyone can get Loki to eat something it’ll be Thor.

“Loki, why are you doing this again?” Thor asks, sadly.

Loki scoffs, and his tone instantly turns cold. “It’s not like I can help it, Thor. It just happens. It happens at the worst fucking times, too.”

“I’m ordering food, and you’re going to eat. You need to,” Thor says, and Tony feels like this is a conversation they have often. Tony has noticed how finicky Loki is when it comes to food in general, and he had previously thought it was just Loki being picky. Now he’s starting to think there may be more to it.

“Fine,” Loki snaps at Thor. Tony scoffs. He’s been begging Loki to eat for days, and all Thor has to do is insist upon it and Loki agrees. Tony feels hurt in his two-sizes too small heart.

“You need to call mother back, too. _Now_ ,” Thor commands. Loki sighs and unfurls himself from the blanket he was curled in. He picks up his phone and goes out to the balcony to make the call despite the rain that’s been falling for the last few days.

Once Loki is gone, Thor turns to Tony. “Thank you, Tony. For keeping him safe. These episodes are.. difficult. And Loki shouldn’t be going through them alone.”

Tony just nods. He’s still high, and it’s a little hard to form words. While Loki is on the balcony talking to their mother Thor calls in an order for delivery from some Chinese place Tony’s never heard of. The food arrives before Loki is done on the phone, and Tony notices Thor periodically peeking outside to see if Loki is still on the phone. The conversation is a heated one, and Tony can tell this simply by looking at Loki’s body language, even though he can’t hear much of the conversation. Loki talks with his hands when he’s irritated or deep into a conversation, and he’s been throwing his hands around like crazy since about half-way through the conversation with his mother. Thor ordered food for Tony as well, and tells him to go ahead and start eating because the conversation with their mother is probably going to last a bit longer, so Tony does. Loki finally reenters after about forty minutes of being on the phone and slumps into the couch.

“How’d it go?” Thor asks through a bite of sesame chicken.

“As well as you’d expect. She’s upset and thinks I’ve been ignoring her. I didn’t tell her what’s been going on. It would have just upset her more, and she’d be up here in a flash to check on me. I don’t need that right now,” Loki says. Thor passes him a container of pork fried rice, and Loki takes a couple bites before he begins continuously picking at it and glaring at the food like it’s somehow wronged him.

“Eat,” Thor commands in an authoritarian voice, and Loki glares at him but does as he is told.

Tony will never understand the bond between brothers like Thor and Loki. They’re barely a year and a half apart in age, so they’ve been close to each other their entire lives. They’ve had to compete with each other their entire lives, yet they’re bound at the hip. Where Thor goes Loki goes and vice versa. Thor would follow Loki into the depths of hell, and Tony believes that Loki would do the same despite his vagrant attitude towards Thor that comes out the majority of the time. Tony is an only child, and he knows that he will never understand the bond that Thor and Loki have – despite Loki being adopted – and he is almost jealous of this.

The three of them eat in silence. Thor slurps up noodles as he glances at the TV, and Loki takes sporadic bites of his own food. Tony watches the two of them as he eats, and he’s craving a drink right about now. He’s still coming down from the pill he had snorted earlier, and he’s starting to get sleepy. He wants Thor to leave so he can do some coke with Loki and wake the fuck up. Thor doesn’t leave any time soon, though, and Tony feels himself starting to crave the high of cocaine mixed with alcohol. He makes himself a drink, earning a questioning look from Thor, and sits himself back where he was on the loveseat. He drinks the first and the second and third drinks in under 30 minutes until he has a nice buzz going, and then slows down a bit. The cravings are eating at the back of his mind, and he hates feeling like this. Feeling like he needs to be high. But, he supposes, this is how Loki feels most of the time. Feeling like he needs to change the way he feels at base level.

Thor sticks around for another couple hours, chatting with Loki and Tony. Tony can tell that Loki is starting to get anxious for Thor to leave as well, and he can tell by the way Loki is starting to fidget and bite his nails. Thor eventually leaves, bidding both of them goodbye. Before he leaves he gives Tony a distinct nod, which serves as another ‘thank you’ for taking care of Loki (sort of) and then Thor is on his way. As soon as Thor is gone Loki is asking for his kit and pulling out the drugs from the inside of the coffee table again, and Tony wonders just how many of those little hydromorphone pills Loki got earlier, because it looks like the pill bottle he’s keeping them in is half full. He knows those fuckers aren’t cheap, either, but who is he to tell Loki how to spend his own damn allowance? It’s not like Tony doesn’t get one himself, and he spends a good portion of it on drugs and liquor as well.

Loki breaks down a pill, and when he offers it to Tony, Tony has to say no. He really doesn’t want a repeat of what happened earlier in the day. So he watches in astonishment as Loki snorts an entire pill to himself, before breaking out the coke and lining out a couple lines for Tony. It’s like Loki knew about his cravings, and Tony wonders if he has a tell, or if Loki just knows the look of cravings based on personal experience. They spend the rest of the night drinking and doing drugs and watching _Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency_ , and by the end of it Tony doesn’t understand how Loki is still conscious. He’s watched him snort three pills and pop four oxycodone on top of drinking (never mind he was keeping pace with Tony’s drinking). Tony just laughs it off at the time, but later – much later – he realizes it should have been a bright red warning sign as for what was to come.

The fifth day is much better than the previous several days. Loki gets up early and showers, and then e-mails his professors about the classes he has missed the last several days to get his assignments. He eats cold leftover Chinese food and watches the morning news. He seems in a better place mentally, Tony thinks, but he could be wrong. Nevertheless, Loki tells him it’s safe to stop hiding the sharp objects and tells Tony that it’s okay for him to go home, but Tony chooses to stay with Loki the rest of the day anyways. Tony is proud of Loki for making it through another one of these episodes, and he tells him so. Loki shies away from the subject, choosing to change the topic. Tony also notices that Loki doesn’t start out the day with coke or drinking, and instead just takes his prescribed amount of hydrocodone. Life feels good to Tony, and he savors it while he can.

_×××_

It gets worse at night, Tony notices. It’s small things, really. Like the way that once his hair has completely and utterly frustrated him from constantly falling into his face that Loki will tie it back into a small ponytail at the nape of his neck and then continue to read or write or draw or something. As Loki flips the pages of the book he’ll begin to fidget, pulling at small sections of hair near the ponytail because they got caught in that odd way that pulls his hair. So Loki will pull the hair tie out, only to scoop it all up into a low bun a few minutes later. Loki bites his fingernails, reads through a few more pages before thin pieces of overgrown bangs begin to flop down into his eyes. He picks at the cuticles of his nails until they’re raw and red. His leg is going up and down like a rabbit, almost as if he were running in place. And finally once Loki is sick of blowing those silly little strands out of his face he relents, pulling it out once more, doubling over, and tying his hair into a messy knot on the top of his head. It makes Tony laugh, but he knows that the fidgeting is part of the anxiety. This only happens when Loki’s thoughts get too loud, too fast.

It’s at night when Loki reaches for the pill bottles hidden inside the coffee table and pours three or four tablets of somethings into his hand, popping them into his mouth, and chasing them with a shot of vodka. Tony knows that at least one of those is a legitimate prescription but the rest are most definitely not. So Tony will keep his eye on Loki, side-eyeing him to make sure he’s still breathing, making small noises when he nods off to ensure Loki remains conscious.

It’s at night when Loki will disappear onto the balcony for thirty minutes while he chain-smokes cigarette after cigarette.

It’s at night that Loki plays music to drown out his thoughts

 

V.

 _“you can't make homes out of human beings_  
someone should have already told you that”  
― Warsan Shire 

 

Loki’s scrolling through an online list of support groups; everything from behavioral and substance abuse disorders such as Overeaters Anonymous, Codependent Anonymous, A.A., N.A., AlAnon/Alateen, to a plethora of support groups for other medical conditions such as brain tumors, infertility, Hydrocephalus (“What even is that?” Tony thinks, and files it away in his brain folder entitled, “Things to Look Up Later”), leukemia and lymphoma, and ADHD/ADD.

Loki says it’s for a presentation in this Therapeutic Group Work class he’s taking, but Tony can’t help but feel that Loki may be channeling the Narrator from _Fight Club_ just a little too much.

“Ha!” Loki exclaims. “Lookit this shit. There’s a ‘survivors of suicide victims’ support group. That entire sentence just sounds like a giant contradiction.”

There’s these two scars on the inside of Loki’s wrist, but they’re going the wrong way. Tony knows, even without Loki telling him about them, that they’ve shrank. The two visible lines are maybe 3 centimeters long each, all sharp and raised, but when the sun hits Loki’s wrist just right Tony can see the way that two dull, almost flesh-toned lines spread across Loki’s wrist.

Tony doesn’t respond to Loki’s comment, just continues loading dishes into Loki’s dishwasher. Loki can’t be bothered to do it himself. Of all the household chores that a normal adult is supposed to take part in, dishes are the ones thing Loki is absolutely horrible about doing. His apartment is usually clean, except when he gets into one of his moods.

“So, what’s this assignment you’re working on?” Tony questions as he loads a detergent pod into the dish washer and turns it to the on cycle.

Loki huffs for a moment. “Basically, I have to go to one of these groups and then write a report about the experience.”

“Which one are you gonna go to?”

“Probably one of the N.A. or A.A. meetings. Those are the most frequent.”

“When’s the assignment due?” Tony asks, plopping next to Loki on the sofa and looking at the screen with a listing of N.A. meetings on it.

“Tomorrow,” Loki sighs.

“ _Loki_.”

“Relax, Tony. Here’s one tonight at 8p.m. at that Lutheran church not far from here. Care to go with me? I’m gonna feel really awkward going alone.

Tony sighs. He knew he was going to get roped into this somehow. “I guess.” Tony can’t help but think of the irony of Loki going to an N.A. meeting.

“Awesome. If we leave in 10 minutes we can make it on time. But first…” Loki trails off, reaching for the bag of coke and his kit inside the coffee table. “I’m going to need to be high to deal with this shit and all these whining addicts.”

Tony scoffs. Loki gives him a look, but Tony just shrugs his shoulders like he’s not thinking about the fact that Loki is going to fit in perfectly with all those whiny addicts.

Loki lines out four lines, and they each take theirs.

“Don’t you feel a little bad about going to a meeting high when literally the point of the group is to be sober from drugs?”

“Not really,” Loki says very matter of factly.

Tony sighs, and stands to go get his coat. That’s when Loki’s phone rings, and the world drops from beneath him.

 “Yes, Thor?” Loki says in an annoyed tone.

There’s chatter on the other line for a moment, and Tony can hear speaking indistinctly. Then there’s a long pause, and all Tony can hear Thor say is, ‘Loki, are you still there?’

“Yeah. Yeah I am. Okay. I’ll be there soon,” and then Loki hangs up. He swallows hard.

Tony glances at him while he’s buttoning his coat, and there is something noticeably wrong. “Loki?”

He receives no answer, but Loki swallows hard.

“Loki, what’s wrong?”

There’s a moment before Loki answers. “It’s Odin. He’s had a stroke.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Which hospital?”

_×××_

                Loki has a phobia of hospitals. Ever since he was in one himself, it’s been bad. The smells of antiseptic and bleach fill his nostrils as they enter, and he immediately regrets coming. They check in at the reception desk since visiting hours are almost over, and then make their way upstairs via the elevator to the floor that Odin is on. Before they even make it in the room, Frigga is rushing Loki, hugging him, and Loki is visibly shaking as he returns his mother’s embrace.

“Oh, Loki,” Frigga sobs. “My baby.”

Loki is visibly uncomfortable. He doesn’t do well with others’ grief.

“Don’t worry mom, I’m sure everything will be fine,” Loki tries to comfort her. But he knows, deep down, that everything is not going to be fine. Frigga releases her embrace, wiping away a few tears that haven’t had the chance to fall quite yet.

Thor is sitting somberly in the corner of the room with his hands clasped and his head down. He doesn’t look up when Tony and Loki enter the room. Loki takes a seat besides Thor, but Thor doesn’t move. Loki questionably settles a hand on Thor’s back, and Tony feels even more awkward because he doesn’t know what to do or say in this situation. Odin is in a fucking coma, for Christ’s sake.

Loki feels sick when he looks at Odin. There are various tubes around his face and an IV and a breathing machine. Loki can’t help but wonder how he looked when he was in the hospital like this, if it was this bad. He feels a pit in his stomach grow.

“What have the doctor’s said?” He asks.

Frigga relays the most recent information from the doctor. It isn’t good.

Tony and Loki stay until about 2 a.m., and it takes them more than an hour to convince Frigga to go home and get some sleep. Thor left an hour before because he has class in the morning that he can’t miss. Tony offers to drive Frigga home, insists on it, really, but she refuses, says she’ll take a cab, but thanks him anyways.

Loki looks at Odin like he’s never going to see him again. Even with as many issues as they’ve had with each other, Odin is still the man that raised him. He’s still his father, for all intents and purposes.

When they make it back to the apartment Loki immediately goes to his stash and starts to break down two dilaudid’s into his crushing bowl. He doesn’t offer Tony any, and Tony doesn’t want any anyways. Tony thinks back over the events of the night, and he just wants to crawl into bed and sleep for several days. He needs a drink, so he makes himself one.

Tony settles himself onto the couch as Loki snorts a line. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Loki says.

So, they sit there. Loki snorting his pills, and Tony drinking until he can’t see straight and is slurring his words. They watch the sunrise, and Loki wonders when the last time it was that Odin saw the sun rise. He wonders if he ever will again.

Loki doesn’t go back to the hospital.

And Odin dies on a Tuesday at 3:54 a.m.

_×××_

                Loki goes to the funeral high out of his mind on cocaine. He hasn’t slept since Odin was declared brain dead and his DNR was put into effect. Tony goes with a few drinks in his system. Loki hasn’t cried yet, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to.

                It rains that day. There are a lot of people at the funeral, some that Loki and Thor know and some that they don’t. Colleagues, friends, family from out of town all come to mourn the loss of the great Odin. The funeral goes as most funerals do. Tony sits behind them, and notices the almost audible tension between the members of the Odinson family throughout the funeral. Thor is mad that Loki refused to visit Odin again before he died, he doesn’t understand (or know about, for that matter) the flashbacks Loki gets when he enters a hospital. Doesn’t know that almost the only thing Loki has thought about since then is what his funeral would have been like – what it will be like when he dies. Loki thinks a lot about death in those days between when he gets that call from Thor and when Odin passes.

                _At least it was peaceful_ , he thinks.

                Odin’s death makes the newspaper, and it’s the first time that Loki buys a newspaper since he was a child. He clips out the article and the obituary, and hides them in the box under his bed that’s full of razor blades and Xacto knives. Loki can’t help but hold a blade in his hand, staring at it longingly. _But Tony would know_ , he thinks, _Tony would see_. In the end he decides he doesn’t care. Let Tony see.

                Once he’s finished, Loki finally cries. Tears of dread and destruction, of chaos and sorrow. He weeps for the only father he’s only ever known, he weeps for his mother and his brother, and finally, he weeps for himself.

VI.

_“The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to the rest who do.”  
― Warsan Shire _

                A breaking point is, by definition, “the moment of greatest strain at which someone or something gives way.” This – _this_ is Tony’s breaking point. It’s been almost two years with Loki and Tony loves him dearly, but it’s clear at this point that Loki has problems that Tony can’t fix. And that’s what Tony does – he _fixes_ things.

                Loki’s pulled another one of his disappearing acts. He hasn’t answered his phone in 12 hours, and Tony has learned by now the difference between Loki needing space and Loki being in a dangerous place. He can tell that Loki has been leaning towards unwell again. He’s been withdrawing, pulling away, answering phone calls and texts less and less frequently while doing more and more drugs.

                Tony knocks on Loki’s door at 4:26 p.m., and when there’s no answer he uses his spare key to enter Loki’s apartment. Ares greets him warmly, wrapping between his legs and mewling for attention and love. Tony pets the cat, calling out Loki’s name. There’s no answer. All of the lights in the apartment are on, but Loki is nowhere to be seen. Tony checks every room, calling for his boyfriend, but he’s nowhere to be found.

                At 4:32 Tony finds Loki on the bathroom floor unconscious and bloody.

                This – _this_ is Tony’s breaking point.

                Loki is cold to the touch, and as much as Tony shakes him and screams his name Loki’s eyes don’t flutter and he doesn’t move. Tony checks his pulse and it’s thready, but it’s there.

For some reason Tony’s gut doesn’t tell him to call 911, it tells him to call Thor. Because Thor always knows what to do in these situations.

The phone call goes like this:

“Hello?” Thor answers groggily. He must have been taking a nap.

“Thor, it’s Loki.”

“What? What’s wrong?” Thor immediately goes into overdrive. A million thoughts and scenarios run through his head in the mere seconds it takes Tony to respond.

“I found him unconscious in his bathroom. There’s a lot of blood. God, there’s so much fucking blood. He’s got a pulse but it’s weak. Thor, what do I do?”

“I’m on my way. Call 911 right now.” And just like that Thor hangs up.

Tony does what he’s told and calls the police. The dispatcher talks him through what to do, tells him to try to find the source of the bleeding and if he’s still bleeding to try to stifle it. Tony does this, and to his dismay finds that Loki’s head is just pouring blood. He knows, logically, that head wounds bleed badly, but this? This is just ridiculous.

And before he knows it Thor is there and there’s sirens in the distance and he’s holding Loki’s limp body in his arms and there’s blood on his clothes and hands and arms and tears running down his face.

Thor looks shell-shocked when he bursts into the bathroom, and he immediately feels sick.

“Oh, Loki,” Thor sighs, dropping to his knees. He brushes Loki’s hair from his face. Tony is rocking back and forth with Loki in his arms.

“Please don’t die please don’t die please don’t die,” Tony keeps saying to Loki’s almost lifeless body over and over and over again like a mantra.

                Loki dies in the ambulance. And it’s not from the head wound. Of course it isn’t. Tony’s assuming that Loki has enough drugs in his system to kill a fucking elephant, and the doctor confirms his suspicions after Loki has been resurrected. The blood, on the other hand, came from a head wound. The doctor suspects that Loki hit his head on the sink as he fell.

                While Thor sleeps in the corner of the hospital room, Tony sits across from him, his elbows propped on his knees, his face in his hands. Loki is still asleep. He and Thor decided not to call Frigga or anyone else. Loki would be extremely embarrassed.

                This feels like a turning point.

                Loki is in the hospital for about a day before he is released. Thor and Tony take Loki home and get him settled in. Loki’s barely spoken three words since waking up in the hospital, and he’s barely been able to meet anyone’s eye. Loki feels a deep shame within himself, and he doesn’t know how to make it go away. He moves stiffly, in rugged and almost sudden movements. He sleeps on and off for the next few days.

                Until the withdrawal starts.

                Loki wakes on the sofa one morning with a craving. It’s settled into the deepest recess of his brain and his stomach. His hands shake and he feels sick to his stomach. He can hear Tony moving around in the kitchen, and he glances back as he slowly reaches into his coffee table, feeling around for the kit that he knows is in there. He finds it, pulls it out, and opens the Sucretes can only to be severely disappointed by the fact that it’s nearly empty, save for two razors and a cut up straw.

                “Tony?” He calls.

                Tony appears around the corner with a towel in his hand. “Yeah, babe?”

“Where’s my shit?” Loki asks, and already the gut feeling is tightening in his abdomen. He knows where it is.

“Gone,” Tony states very matter of factly, and goes back to the kitchen.

 _Are you serious_ , Loki thinks. He wants to rage at Tony. He wants to scream in his face. But at the same time he knows he doesn’t want to actually do that.

His rage goblin does it anyways.

And before Loki knows what’s happening he’s in Tony’s face, screaming. “Are you fucking kidding me Stark? What the _actual_ _fuck_ is wrong with you?”

“Loki,” Tony scoffs. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. You just fucking died. You fucking _died_. How is this not sinking in?” Tony places his hands on the kitchen counter, staring down at the floor and pushing himself away from the counter every few seconds. He’s doing his damndest not to get angry, not to scream back. “You’ve got to get sober,” Tony runs a hand down his face. “Or at least seriously cut back. You are not okay.”

“You’re right, Tony, I’m not okay. I wonder _why_.”

Tony looks over at Loki and sighs. Loki is _seething_.

“Loki, you have a problem–”

“You’re my fucking problem right now, Stark.” The use of Tony’s last name stings, and it makes his heart drop a little.

“Loki, look. I know you’ve been through a lot lately. Not just lately, but over the last few years. With what happened with Natasha, and now with Odin dying–”

“Get out Stark,” Loki seethes. “Get out. Right now.”

Tony stops, the surprise apparent on his face. “Loki, please.”

“Get _out_.” There’s tears running down Loki’s cheeks now, and Tony reaches for Loki’s hand, but Loki recoils into a protective position, and Tony knows then that he really does need to go.

“Fine,” He says. He grabs his coat and his bookbag, but he leaves his personal belongings, unaware of the events that will play out over the next few hours and days.

Tony collects his belongings and as he heads for the door, he looks back at Loki mournfully. Loki is crouched on the kitchen floor, clutching at his chest, tears streaming down his cheeks. It makes Tony’s heart sink even further, and his first instinct is to turn around and drop everything and to hold his boyfriend. But then Loki glances up at him, hatred and loathing and pain in his eyes, and he whispers, once more, “Tony, _leave_.”

So, Tony does.

As soon as Tony is out the door, Loki immediately gets up and locks it. And then, he makes a phone call.

Thanos is there within 30 minutes, with a whole new arsenal of pills for Loki to down. Loki does his best to dry his tears before Thanos gets there, but each time he gets himself to stop another memory with Tony crosses his mind and he starts to cry again.

Thanos knocks his special knock that he always does to signal that it’s him, and Loki opens the door, eyes red and cheeks stained with tears.

“Hey man, you okay?” Thanos asks as he comes in, immediately going to the couch and dropping the bookbag he’s carrying with him. He unzips is and pulls out a large ziplock baggie filled with dilaudid.

“No, man, I’m really not,” Loki says as he sits next to Thanos.

The things about drug dealers is this: you end up building a strange sort of friendship with them. You spend time with them on a regular basis, they tend to play the part of a therapist when they feel like it, and they’re always ready to supply you with whatever you need at the drop of a hat.

“What’s up man?” Thanos asks.

“Nothing. Just relationship problems.”

“I heard you had a scare the other day.”

Loki doesn’t even want to know how Thanos knows this. He doesn’t think that either Tony or Thor told anyone, but sometimes Thanos just seems to _know_ things.

“Sort of. I’m fine now,” Loki says. He doesn’t want to talk right now. He wants his fucking pills, and he wants that sweet, sweet release of serotonin in his brain. He wants that nod.

“Well here man,” Thanos says as he hands the bag of pills to Loki. Loki hands over the cash, and he smiles as he feels the weight of the bag in his hand.

“Want to split one?” Loki asks.

“Aw man, I’d love to, but I’ve got another drop to make. Next time, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks for coming by,” Loki says solemnly, and he can’t help but feel a bit rejected.

“Anytime man,” Thanos says, grabbing his bookbag and standing up. He leaves with a wave and a smile, and Loki immediately goes to lock the door once again as he leaves.

Loki immediately grabs his kit from the top of the coffee table where he left it earlier. He breaks down a pill into a two lines, does both of them, sits back and lights a cigarette. Within 15 minutes he’s in heaven. His limbs are looser, he’s calmer, and for the first time in days he feels _happy_.

So he does another one, and then another one, and then another one. And before he knows it he’s nodding out on his couch listening to Lana del Rey with a smile on his face. He has three missed calls from Tony and at the very moment, he doesn’t give a shit.

Loki can’t stand silence. It irks him. Maybe it’s because when there’s no background noise – no music, no TV, no open windows letting in the sounds of the city and the constant hum and cars and voices and humanity. Maybe it’s because silence makes Loki feel lonely, maybe it’s because silence causes his thoughts to roll around and tangle up in his head until they’re all a jumbled mess and he can’t stop thinking about embarrassing moments from seventh grade and the first person he kissed and the first time he tried to kill himself. But Loki can’t deal with silence. There always has to be a TV on or there always has to be music playing. Silence is not an option. Even though Loki knows that the constant noise and lights are one of the things that contribute to his insomnia he can’t help it. He’d rather be sleepless than borderline suicidal.

_×××_

“You can only blame your problems on the world for so long,” Thor sighs into his scarf while averting his eyes and pulling his heavy, navy toned pea coat closer to himself despite the fact that the buttons are already stressed and bunching slightly from being pulled too tightly across the broadness of his chest.

Loki scoffs, tucking a small chunk of inky black hair behind his ear.

“Ask me any day when I’m going to get clean,” Loki lets out a little sarcastic huff of a laugh, stretching himself further across the couch. There’s a pregnant pause, as if Loki is prompting Thor to ask him. But Thor doesn’t because he knows Loki is just trying to instigate a fight, and Loki sighs, breaking eye contact and turning his head to the window. “My answer to that question will always be ‘tomorrow’. When I say I want to be high for the rest of my life I feel like I’m lying to myself. But when I say I want to get sober I know for a fucking fact that I’m lying.”

Loki is about to self-destruct, and nobody knows where the abort button on that ship is except Loki.

“Believe in me or not, but I will continue to exist,” Loki says in a sad, triumphant manner.

_×××_

Things deteriorate from there. Well, deteriorate may not be the right word. Implode. _Implode_ is the right word.

Things implode from there.

Tony and Loki’s relationship begins to worsen after Loki gets home from the hospital. They both act like their fight over Tony throwing out Loki’s pills never happened, and Loki continues to down drugs like they’re the only thing keeping him alive, and Tony begins to drink more and more whenever he has to be around Loki. They argue more and more. They scream more and more. They lie about where they are, who they’re with, and what they’re doing more and more.

This is when things finally come to a turning point.

Loki’s curled up in a cheap plastic lawn chair on the back deck of Tony’s house. It’s the dead heat of summer and the air is stiff and so humid it’s hard to breathe. Loki pulls his knees to his chest and takes a hit from his cigarette, sleepy eyes glancing inconspicuously over to Tony who’s sitting a few feet away from him. It’s just the two of them, but neither of them have been speaking to each other much. Loki feels a swing, a pull in his gut which occurs with the sudden breeze of cool air that washes over the two of them. Both physically relax at the brief relief from the heat, and Loki… Loki doesn’t know if he wants to fuck or fight. The validation he wants, the void he suddenly needs to fill – either option will satisfy his want. He doesn’t know if he wants to fuck Tony right now or if he wants to burn himself with his cigarette. His mind switches from imagining his hands in Tony’s hair as his head bobs up and down, his lips wrapped around Loki’s cock as Tony stares up at him, or if Loki wants to go inside and slice open his thighs until he’s wonderfully lightheaded.

Loki’s halfway in, halfway out.

Something doesn’t feel right. There’s an itch in Loki’s brain telling him to do something. Do something that will get you in trouble, his rage goblin screams. Going full on Iliza Schlesinger party goblin, Loki’s rage goblin screams _start a fight cry then ask why he’s like this then leave in the middle of the argument and text him ‘I love you’ then turn your phone offfffffff_. His rage goblin snickers at the thought.

Loki rolls his head in Tony’s direction tossing on the best bedroom eyes he can muster.

“Hey,” Loki says and Tony glances up to him from his phone. “Wanna fuck?”

Tony scoffs and rolls his eyes, “Fuck off Loki.” Tony says it playfully, like he took what Loki said as a joke, but it still causes that switch inside Loki to fully flip. Loki unfolds his long legs quickly, gathering up his cigarettes.

Tony can feel the instant that Loki’s mood flips and realizes he probably just fucked up. “Hey, Loki, what’s wrong?”

Loki picks up his drink and the ashtray he has been keeping on the ledge of the balcony and turns to go back inside. “Fuck off Stark,” he spits at Tony, mimicking his tone.

Tony knows that when Loki has a mood swing like that to leave him alone for at least fifteen minutes. So, after that small chunk of time has passed Tony makes his way upstairs and knocks on the bathroom door where he assumes Loki is hiding.

“Lo? Can I come in?” Tony questions, knocking quietly.

“Yeah,” is the muffled reply from the other side of the door.

Loki is sat in the bathtub with a cigarette in one hand, while the other arm leans casually off the other side of the tub. He doesn’t look at Tony, simply smokes his cigarette and stares straight ahead.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks, his stomach sickening.

Loki stares up at him through hooded lids. “Don’t act like you don’t know. You’re not very good at it.”

Tony is at a loss. He almost always is when Loki has a mood swing like this. There’s just so much going on in that demented, twisted, lying head of Loki’s that Tony usually doesn’t know what the fuck to do or what he’s done wrong.

Loki takes a few minutes, staring off into space.

“You know, it wasn’t an accident,” Loki says, almost in a whisper.

Tony is confused. “What wasn’t?”

“The overdose,” Loki says as he exhales. The ash of his cigarette is getting dangerously long, threatening to fall. Tony’s stomach sinks lower than he thought it could.

“ _What_?” Tony sputters. So many thoughts are racing through his head, but mainly it’s _whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy you have me you have so many things to live for_ why _._

And then, as if reading Tony’s mind and making him inherently paranoid that Loki does, in fact, have that capability, Loki says, “I feel like I have nothing to live for. There’s this emptiness inside me. I’m fucking sick, Tony. And I don’t know what to do or how to make the thoughts stop. I want to die all the time. I can’t eat, I barely sleep. I have an insane fear of abandonment, so I push people away before they can get close to me. My mind is constantly racing, and the only time it ever stops is when I’m high. So I’ve got to be high all the time.”

Loki takes a drag from his cigarette, blowing the smoke up to the ceiling, and Tony almost feels like he wants to cry.

“Do you know what it’s like to want to die every single day of your life? To want to slit your wrists or swallow a handful of pills or to want to blow your own brains out?” Loki glares at Tony, and before Tony can answer, Loki continues, “You don’t. You don’t know what it’s like. And you probably never will. Don’t act like you do.”

They’re both silent for several minutes, Loki stewing in his own self-hatred and Tony sinking into a depression from the realization that he didn’t know things were _this_ bad. Loki finally makes a move to get up from the bathtub after some time has passed in silence and he gathers his cigarettes and moves for the door, and before Tony can speak or comprehend the thoughts running through his head or form the words he wants to say to try to comfort and console Loki, Loki says the words that Tony has secretly been dreading for several weeks now.

“I think we should break up, Stark.”

And just like that, without even a glance back at Tony, Loki leaves. He leaves Tony Stark sitting in awe and abandoned in a bathroom full of cigarette smoke and loathing.

_×××_

Several weeks go by and Tony doesn’t hear from or see Loki. He checks in with Thor to make sure that Loki is still alive. He goes through the stages of the breakup quite healthily, save for the enormous amounts of scotch and whiskey he drinks.

Tony fixates on things Loki had said in the past, signs he should not have missed. He feels a severe loss from his life, and he doesn’t understand what or why the breakup really happened. He spends hours reminiscing and thinking of Loki. He goes through denial, feeling like he can’t live without Loki in his life. Loki has become such a cornerstone of his life over the last two years that it seems almost impossible to live life without him. He bargains with himself, doing anything he can to accept that it’s really over. Because maybe it’s not. Who knows, with Loki being the way he is. Maybe he just needed some space. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he misunderstood. Maybe it’s just a break, not a break- _up_. He goes through the anger, the immobilizing fear and dread of what his life will be like without Loki in it. And then, he starts to accept it. He finally realizes that it’s not good for him to keep trying anymore. He stills calls Loki to hear his voice on his voicemail, but Loki never answers, and Tony doesn’t really expect him to anyways.

And then he meets Pepper. And Pepper, she wraps Tony up in her warmth and her glow and he starts to really heal.

And when Tony thinks he’s finally getting over Loki, the phone calls and text messages from Loki start. All hours of the nights, Loki will call and text him. Tony doesn’t answer them (usually), and he sleeps soundly next to Pepper most nights of the week. But every once in a while, when Tony is feeling down or when he’s had a fight with Pepper and she’s stormed out and he’s alone, he’ll answer those calls. Loki is usually crying and hiccupping and apologizing and pleaing. But Tony’s done (at least he thinks he is).

And then one night, he gets a call.

 “Hello?” Tony asks, trying to wipe away the dead settlement of sleep. He glances at the clock on the bed-side table. 3:58. Fuck. Tony moans, realizing in that moment who is calling him at nearly 4 a.m. in the fucking morning on a Monday.

“Tonyyyy…” comes the slurred, delighted voice on the other end. “Hi,” Loki says.

“Loki, fuck, it’s,” Tony glances at the clock again. “It’s fucking four in the morning. Why the fuck are you calling me?” It’s not until after the words come out of his mouth that he realizes his mistake. But he blames it on the fact that he’s just been woken from a deep slumber, never mind the fact that he’s still somewhat drunk after having only an hour of sleep.

There’s a mumble on the other end and Tony almost growls. “What, Loki? What the fuck is wrong?!” Tony whisper-screams. He glances to the mess of red hair and white skin beside him in bed. He gets up slowly, carefully, as to not wake Pepper and walks into the adjoining bathroom. “Why the fuck are you calling me?”

There’s only silence on the other end. For nearly two minutes there is simply total silence. Tony doesn’t know why he doesn’t hang up, but he reasons that it’s because he can hear Loki’s shallow breaths on the other end of the line and he can’t bring himself to hang up first. Tony’s heart drops into his gut.

“…Loki?” Tony asks softly.

“I need help,” Loki slurs. “But it’s okay. I’m sorry I called you. I don’t know why I did that. That was silly,” Loki giggles.

“Loki, where are you? I’m coming to get you,” Tony states as he re-enters his bedroom to find a pair of shoes and a jacket. Pepper stirs and he freezes, but she doesn’t wake, so Tony continues his search for clothes.

Loki giggles madly. “I’m half-way in, half-way out. I have my girls to keep me company. My girls will take care of me.”

Tony knows what girls means; it means cocaine and weed and oxy’s and xans. And Tony doesn’t know exactly what Loki’s on, but this isn’t the first time he’s gotten a call like this. He’s picked Loki up from various houses and bars at all hours of the night with Loki at all levels of intoxication. But Tony knows just from Loki’s tone that this is a bad situation. Very bad. The type where he knows that he should call Thor, but he still has those lingering feelings that calling Thor would be betrayal.

—————

“I hate how addicted I get to anything that makes me feel anything,” Loki says, dragging a cigarette and looking down at his entwined hands. “I thought I had this under control, but I don’t,” Loki says mournfully.

“No, you damn well don’t,” Tony says, taking the cigarette from Loki’s hand and dragging it before passing it back. This is the last conversation Tony will have with Loki before Loki goes missing.

Loki is in a place where he needs to be sober, but he has the egregious need to sabotage himself. He wonders if there’s any point. He wonders if he can dig the hole just a bit deeper before a sinkhole erupts beneath him and envelops him, swallowing him whole. But another part of him wonders what that would be like, wishes for it almost. Everyone has a rock bottom, and Loki doesn’t know where exactly his is, but he’s damn sure willing to find out.

Tony takes stock of Loki’s drug inventory sitting on the table. Twenty dilaudid, thirty oxycodone, eighty lortabs, and three grams of cocaine. It’s enough to knock anyone dead with no problem, but Tony has a feeling the majority of the pills will be gone within the next five days. Loki’s tolerance is out of control, and Tony can only imagine what withdrawal would look like. He doesn’t even want to think about it. _No, that’s not right, he doesn’t want to_ talk _about it_. Because talking about it means addressing the problem. The problem that’s sitting right in front of him, in the form of 130 little white and pink pills and a bag of chunky white rocks.

“Do you remember that time that you took acid and watched a spider catch, mummify, and then eat bugs in its web for, like, two hours?”

Loki laughs out loud, rocking back in his chair, clapping and then covering his face as the memory resurfaces. “Yes, I do. But also, you were the one trying to blow marijuana smoke at the spider to try to get it high to see what kind of fucked up web it would make.” It’s a genuinely happy moment, one that’s long overdue. Tony can’t remember the last time he saw Loki laugh or even really smile. And Tony feels like this is good, like this means that Loki is maybe okay, that Loki is finally better. Because for Tony depression is something he’s always had trouble wrapping his mind around, let alone all the other psychological disorders that have been thrown around since Loki was eleven. He doesn’t deny that depression is a thing, he doesn’t think that depression is something that can be magically remedied, and he doesn’t think that it’s a sign of weakness or a fault. But Tony has never felt true depression. Sadness, grief, synonym, synonym, but never depression.

“I miss us,” Loki says, pulling his knees to his chest, tracing circles on the couch. “I miss missing you now and then.”

Tony’s throat clenches shut. He thinks about Loki’s skin in the summer, about Loki’s laugh when he’s not high, about Loki’s eyes when he lies. He misses them too, but he can’t say that. He wants it too bad. If he says the wrong thing he’s going to trip over his feelings and fall right back into all the chaos that is Loki Odinson. The chaos that he loves more than anything in this world.

Tony puts his hands on his knees, standing up. “I should go.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Loki scoffs, unfurling himself from the couch in anger.

“I’m not going to entertain the idea that a tiger can change its stripes, Loki.”

“Make it easy. Say that I never mattered,” Loki spits.

“Loki…” Tony trails off, but Loki is in his face now.

“I never mattered to you. I’ve never mattered to anyone in my whole damn life. I was a trophy for my parents, a good deed for them to show off. They saw me struggling and they did nothing. I’ve never mattered to any of my lovers, I’ve just simply been something to entertain them for a few months and then something to throw away. You were the only person that’s ever stayed more than a few months. You were the only person that’s ever even acted like they cared. And I really thought you did. I really thought you did. But you’re a liar, Tony, just like I am.”

Most of what Loki’s spewing is bullshit, and both of them know it. It’s just Loki feeling sorry for himself, as usual.

“Really, Loki? _Really_? Because your parents got you the best help they could. They sent you to one of the best school on the east coast, they pay for your apartment, they give you an allowance, and for fuck’s sake at least they _love_ you. They pay for your fucking drug habit and never ask any questions when you go to them asking for more money. Wherever you go, trouble fucking follows you. And I tried, Loki, I tried. I tried to help you. And the worst part is I thought that I could. I thought little old me could help the giant fucking problem that is you, Loki. The wreck that is your life. But no, you know what? You don’t want to get better. You want to wallow. You want to be sick. You want to be addicted. Because that’s easier than really, truly loving someone.” Tony shoves Loki back into the couch, causing Loki to fall back off his feet. He lands with a soft thump in the cushions, and the look on his face is genuine shock.

Tony stands there, seething.

“Leave. Now,” Loki orders.

“Gladly,” Tony says, and flips Loki off as he leaves the apartment.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no waiting time on how long you have to wait to report a person missing. It’s sixteen hours before anyone notices that Loki is missing, and it’s thirty six hours before Tony knows. It’s thirty nine before a bad feeling starts to settle into Tony’s gut, and it’s forty two hours before Loki is found, and in that time Tony thinks. Tony thinks a lot.

_×××_

Tony goes to Loki’s apartment after he talks to Thor. He lets himself in with the spare key that he still keeps on his keychain. Ares greets him merrily, and Tony checks his food and water. Both are bone dry, which means Loki hasn’t been here for several days. He fills both bowls, and then… well, then he _waits_. Pepper calls him three times, but he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know what he’s doing right now, but he knows he’s going to regret it.

 Tony spends several hours in Loki’s apartment alone. He watches TV, flipping through the channels trying to find something other than infomercials. He cuddles with Ares. He waters Loki’s plants. He doesn’t know what he’s doing there, but it seems like it’s where he needs to be right now. Not much has changed in the apartment in the time that he’s been gone, but there’s a distinct emptiness to the apartment. _Loki_.

And then, there’s the sound of motions coming from the outside of the apartment door. There’s a key turning in a lock that’s already open, and as soon as the door edges open Ares jumps down from Tony’s lap and goes to the door. Loki is there, and as soon as Tony catches a glimpse of him his heart sinks. Loki is even thinner than usual, dark circles under his eyes, and his hair is pulled into a messy top knot near the crown of his head. It’s the first time Tony’s seen Loki in three months. He hasn’t left the apartment in case Loki were to come back. Thor had been frantic when Tony had talked to him to inform him that Loki had been gone for nearly two days.

Yet, here he is – Loki, in all his strung out glory, waltzing into the apartment like Tony hadn’t just been on the edge of filing a missing person’s report.

It takes Loki several moments of stumbling about the apartment before he notices Tony on the couch.

“Oh,” is all Loki says when he sees Tony at first. Loki won’t meet Tony’s eye, but after several more moments have passed Loki asks, “What are you doing here?”

“Thor was worried. Worried since you’ve been missing for almost two days.”

In reality, this is not unusual. Loki will hole up in his apartment and ignore people for days if not weeks at a time without leaving. Especially after the breakup. The unusual part here is that he _left_.

“So?” Loki rolls his eyes at Tony. “You’re not my keeper, remember? You made that very clear to me, okay.”

Tony sighs, “Loki-“

“Don’t even start with me, Tony.”

Tony glances down at his hands. He doesn’t know what to do with them at the moment. “I just needed to know that you’re okay.”

“Why? We’re not together anymore,” Loki scoffs, plopping into the love seat and lighting a cigarette. Ares jumps up onto the love seat with him, and Loki runs thin fingers through the large cats long grey fur.

There’s a long pause, and Tony can’t meet Loki’s eye, even though he can feel Loki staring holes into the inner most parts of his soul.

“Because I still love you,” Tony whispers. Tony can hear Loki exhale his cigarette. There’s movement from beside him, and then Loki is sitting next to him. All Tony can see are Loki’s arms, and the fresh burns and small cuts there. He wants to cry at the sight of them. He reaches out to trace the freshest one, but Loki jerks back, pulling his sleeves down.

Tony finally gets the courage to look Loki in the eye. There are tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

“You can’t be telling me shit like that Tony. You _can’t_. It’s not _fair_.”

Tony feels guilt spread through his stomach. “I’m sorry.”

There’s another long pause, and then Tony asks, “Do you miss me at all?”

There’s tears falling from Loki’s cheeks now, and he says, “Of course I do. But it’s not about you anymore. You’ve moved on. I’m trying to do the same.”

Tony wonders how Loki knows about Pepper, because he sure as hell hasn’t told him. It looks like Loki’s been keeping tabs on him as well.

“Believe me, Tony, I’m doing you a favor,” Loki says, taking one more drag form his cigarette and then extinguishing it in the ashtray on the coffee table.

“But what if you’re not? What if this was all a mistake? Loki, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.” Tony knows he wasn’t the one that broke them up, but there’s this small hope in his heart that maybe he can magically fix things. That maybe they can get back together. “All I want in this world is you. And for you to be happy.”

“The only time I was truly happy was when I was with you, Tony,” Loki says. “But that time in our lives… it’s-”

“Loki, please. Give it another chance. You are the love of my life. I’ve never met anyone like you before. You stole my heart. And it’s yours if you still want it.”

“Tony, you make me want to die,” Loki says, mournfully. “I would go to the depths of hell and back for you, but I can’t do this again. I just can’t.”

The words break Tony; they break him in ways he didn’t know he could fall apart, stings him in places he didn’t know could hurt. And he falters, lips trembling as he tries to think of something to say. Before he knows it Loki’s arms are wrapped around him, and Tony can feel his chest shakily rising and falling as he cries.

“I’m sorry, Tony, but I can’t. _We_ can’t. And I think you need to go.” Loki lets go of him and wipes away the tears and smiles a sad little smile.

And Tony thinks he finally understands. “I won’t call you anymore. I’ll delete your number from my phone and block it. I won’t interfere in your life anymore, Tony. I want you to be happy.”

Tony thinks for several moments about what Loki is saying, and finally, he complies.

“Okay,” Tony says, nodding his head. “Okay Loki. I’ll do what you’re asking. But please, please take care of yourself, okay?”

Loki smiles and nods. Tony gives him one last hug, a tight goodbye because Tony doesn’t know if he’s ever going to see Loki ever again. And then Tony gets up, pets Ares one last time, and he walks out the door.

And life goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> 3 years. It took me 3 years to write and edit this... thing. But here you go. I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
